The project STEMPATHS seeks to deepen the understanding of the mechanisms underlying the under-representation of female workforce in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM).
Using Austrian register data, Manuel T. Valdés, Laura Zilian, and Nadia Steiber reconstruct the educational and labour market trajectories of adolescent and adult women over 12 years to investigate their field-of-study and career choices.
The project is funded by the ‘Data:Research:Austria’ funding programme of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW). The programme serves to support research projects in the field of data/microdata research, in which existing data is used for fundamental research into social topics and issues.
More information on the project:
The traditional male academic advantage has diminished over recent decades, leaving only one stronghold where men retain a significant advantage: women are less likely to choose fields of study in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM). Numerous policy initiatives aimed to attract girls into STEM education. However, the under-representation of women in the STEM workforce not only stems from gender differences in field-of-study choices; women who graduate in STEM fields are also less likely than their male counterparts to enter and remain in the STEM sector. To advance our understanding of the gendered selection into and out of STEM, we adopt a life-course perspective and study how the family of origin shapes gendered field-of-study choices , and how family formation later in life influences persistence in the STEM sector after graduation.
Using Austrian register data, we reconstruct the educational trajectories, following a cohort of students initially aged 12-15 over 12 years to assess the emergence and growth of the gender gap in STEM choices over the educational career. Applying a decomposition analysis, we estimate the share of the gap attributable to either non-enrolment in STEM or non-completion of STEM programs. We then examine the contribution of the family of origin to this gap by comparing the field-of-study choices of opposite-sex twins. Finally, we investigate the role of specific mechanisms, such as the sex-typicality of parents’ field of study and occupational sector, the role model of older siblings, and the gender-traditionality of the family environment.
Using a second sample covering all women aged 22 to 24 in 2011 who completed tertiary education in a STEM field, we investigate whether female STEM-graduates follow specific family transitions in terms of partnership formation/dissolution and childbearing. We then analyse whether women with STEM degrees are more like than men to leave (or never enter) the STEM sector. Specifically, we examine whether the occurrence and timing of those family transitions prompt women to leave the labour market, remain employed but exit the STEM sector, or remain within the STEM workforce but switch from full-time to part-time employment.
Overall, this project seeks to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms underlying women’s under-representation in STEM. Evidence on effective measures to close the STEM gender gap is of paramount importance, not only because it can contribute to narrowing the gender pay gap, but also because it will help attract and retain talented women in a sector expected to face a considerable shortage of qualified workers in the near future.
