Economic Briefing April 24, 2012: STEM Across the “Gen(d)erations”

Submitted on April 24, 2012 - 5:43pm
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Figure 1 Female Share of College Graduates by Generation and STEM Degree, 2010Last year, ESA issued a series of reports on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) employment.  Newer data are now available and we updated some key results from these reports. Overall, the new data reaffirm the importance of STEM jobs to the U.S. economy (we are happy to share the details with anyone who is interested).

We also extended the analysis in one of the previous reports, Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation, by examining how trends in STEM degrees and jobs by gender have changed across generations; that is, what differences do we see between people just entering the labor force, those whose careers are well underway, and those are reaching retirement age?  What we find is that younger generations of women are more likely to major in STEM fields than are women in previous generations, but there is still a ways to go in terms of translating this into more women working in STEM jobs.   

  • Looking first at degrees, Figure 1 shows that among younger generations, women account for an increasing share of STEM college graduates (the blue bars.) 
  • In 2010, 40.4 percent of “Millenial” STEM degree holders were women, compared with 34.2 percent of “Generation X” and 26.2 percent of “Baby Boomers.” 
  • However, fully utilizing this potential supply of STEM workers remains a challenge. As shown in Figure 2, among college graduates, Millenial women are more likely to hold STEM jobs than their more mature predecessors, though the increase is relatively small. 
  • In 2010, 29.4 percent of Millennial STEM workers (with a college degree) were women compared to 25.2 percent among Gen Xers and 22.2 percent among Baby Boomers.

Figure 2 Female Employment Share Among College Graduates by Generation and STEM

  • Finally, not all STEM degree holders have STEM jobs, and not all STEM job holders have STEM degrees.  Got that?  By gen(d)eration, only 26.3 percent of working female Millennials that earned a STEM degree had STEM jobs, somewhat higher than the 21.3 percent share among female Baby boomers but well below the 46.1 percent share among male Millennials.

Figure 3 Percent of Employed STEM Degree Holders Working in STEM Jobs by Generat 

In conclusion, times are a changin’ for women and STEM, but the gaps between men and women remain vast and have closed only slowly. 

 

~Mark Doms, Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Commerce

April 24, 2012

 

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