Not a pipeline but a highway: Men's and women's STEM career trajectories from age 13 to 25

Abstract

Concerns with diversifying and expanding the STEM workforce have elicited extensive efforts to increase women's adherence to a “no leak pipeline” to match that of men. However, is such a trajectory optimal for boosting women's STEM career attainment? If so, among which types of STEM occupations? Studies often suggested that women are underrepresented in the pipeline of “white-collar”, mathematical, engineering, physical, and computer science (MEPCS) occupations, but to what extent does this conclusion hold true among other types of STEM careers? To answer these questions, we plotted men's and women's STEM career trajectories from age 13 to 25 using a U.S. national longitudinal sample and categorized occupations by domain-specific knowledge (i.e., non-STEM, MEPCS, or LEHMS [life, ecological, health and medical sciences]) and by educational requirement (i.e., “blue-collar” non-STEM, "blue-collar" STEM, "white-collar" non-STEM, or “white-collar” STEM). We found gender similarities in STEM attrition, gender differences in STEM entry, and gender differences in STEM career attainment trajectories. For example, STEM workers rarely took a “no leak pipeline”, except women in LEHMS occupations. Moreover, tracking the size of STEM workforce longitudinally, we found that though small, women's MEPCS workforce expanded to nearly twice its size as participants grew from age 13 to 25; in contrast, the LEHMS workforce shrank to less than a third of its size among both men and women. Our results specify aspects in which STEM trajectories of men and women differ across various types of STEM occupations and thus provide an updated understanding of gendered STEM career trajectories.