Women in the STEM Workforce

  • 10/01/18

The National Girls Collaborative Project (NGCP, www.ngcproject.org) offers many resources to strengthen networks and advance science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for girls and women at all levels of education. The NGCP provides statistics on the role of women and girls in STEM careers and education pathways.

According to their statistics, women remain underrepresented in the science and engineering workforce, although to a lesser degree than in the past, with the greatest disparities occurring in engineering, computer science, and the physical sciences.

  • Women make up half of the total U.S. college-educated workforce, but only 29 percent of the science and engineering workforce.
  • Female scientists and engineers are concentrated in different occupations than are men, with relatively high shares of women in the social sciences (62 percent) and biological, agricultural, and environmental life sciences (48 percent), and relatively low shares in engineering (15 percent) and computer and mathematical sciences (25 percent). For example:
    • 35.2 percent of chemists are women;
    • 11.1 percent of physicists and astronomers are women;
    • 33.8 percent of environmental engineers are women;
    • 22.7 percent of chemical engineers are women;
    • 17.5 percent of civil, architectural, and sanitary engineers are women;
    • 17.1 percent of industrial engineers are women;
    • 10.7 percent of electrical or computer hardware engineers are women; and
    • 7.9 percent of mechanical engineers are women.

This article originally appeared in the College Planning & Management October 2018 issue of Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • How One School Reimagined Learning Spaces—and What Others Can Learn

    When Collegedale Academy, a PreK–8 school outside Chattanooga, Tenn., needed a new elementary building, we faced the choice that many school leaders eventually confront: repair an aging facility or reimagine what learning spaces could be. Our historic elementary school held decades of memories for families, including some who had once walked its halls as children themselves. But years of wear and the need for costly repairs made it clear that investing in the old building would only patch the problems rather than solve them.

  • KI Launches K–12 Classroom Furniture Giveaway

    Contract furniture company KI recently announced the launch of its fourth-annual Classroom Furniture Giveaway, which awards $50,000 each to four K–12 educators across the U.S., according to a news release. The goal is to address decreasing student engagement and increasing teacher burnout numbers by updating learning spaces to accommodate modern needs.

  • Tennessee State University Gains Approval for New Engineering Facility

    Tennessee State University in Nashville, Tenn., recently announced that it has received approval from the Tennessee State Building Commission to build a new engineering building on campus, according to a university news release. The 70,000-square-foot, $50-million facility will play home to the university’s engineering programs and the Applied & Industrial Technology program.

  • Colorado State University Global, SCTE Launch Online Certificate Program

    Colorado State University Global (CSU Global), based in Denver, Colo., recently announced a partnership with CableLabs subsidiary the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) to launch an online certificate training program for broadband professionals, according to a news release.