STEM careers: Turning the tide around on gender inequality

The steps required to integrate more women into STEM careers:

• • Invite women to forum and decision-making processes, recognizing their unique contributions and struggles in the workplace

• • Allow women to contribute to the policy on gender/genderless hiring,

• • Ensure that these policies reflect the contributions of a diversified workforce,

• • Progressive leaders in industries and the government must ensure that these policies are robustly enforced.

When the issues of inequality are examined in-depth, they reverberate with the same pattern of global injustices. These further impact the economy of women, and their social attributes, leading to overall marginalization. A seeming culture of men against women, that compounds marginalized women of Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic (BAME). The subtle meaning, of the acronym BAME, or black minority ethnic (BME) is a great contention within this group of community. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that change is needed, now, and this is not a request.

Achievement isn’t why more men are majoring in physics, engineering and computer science

While some STEM majors have a one-to-one male-to-female (trans) ratio, physics, engineering and computer science (PECS) majors consistently have some of the largest gender imbalances among U.S. college majors—with about four men to every woman in the major. In a new study published today in the peer-reviewed research journal, Science, NYU researchers find that this disparity is not caused by higher mathematics or science achievement among men. On the contrary, the scholars found that men with very low high-school GPAs in mathematics and science and very low SAT mathematics scores were choosing these mathematics-intensive majors just as often as women with much higher mathematics and science achievement.

“Physics, engineering and computer science fields are differentially attracting and retaining lower-achieving males, resulting in women being underrepresented in these majors but having higher demonstrated STEM competence and academic achievement,” said Joseph R. Cimpian, lead researcher and associate professor of economics and education policy at NYU Steinhardt.

Cimpian and his colleagues analysed data from almost 6,000 U.S. high school students over seven years—from the start of high school into the student’s junior year of college. Male students in the 1st percentile were majoring in PECS at the same rate as females in the 80th percentile. There is a clear academic disparity between female and male students majoring in PECS.