On the State of Women in Engineering (2023)
Someone recently wrote asking about the research on women exiting engineering. I would like to point to several resources for this HR professional and any other leaders out there who are seeking to incorporate data into plans and initiatives for employee retention.
And like I discussed here, I believe corporate retention plans are FAR more important than recruitment and will be for at least a decade or more.
Nearly 40% of Women Who Earn Engineering Degrees Exit the Field or Never Bother Entering
This statistic comes from peer-reviewed research by a group out of the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (Fouad, Singh, Levitas, Linneman, Kessler, Yu), published 2011-2017. Find their published papers here.
An exec summary of why women with engineering degrees leave or never bother engineering
A publication featuring direct quotes from some of the women in the study
One research participant stated, “Women leave engineering due to lack of job satisfaction, lack of reliable female role models, inflexible work schedules, workplace discrimination, white midwestern men syndrome, and glass ceiling issues.“ - Latina Civil Engineering Graduate
What about SWE (Society of Women Engineers)?
SWE regularly publishes updates on the state of women in the industry. Here are some highlights from the 2023 page:
Regarding the statistic above, the writers noted that there has been some debate as to whether or not women actually exit STEM at a higher rate than their male counterparts. This recent study seems to indicate they do. Regardless, the original findings (Fouad et al.) are critically important for two reasons:
First, they debunked the myth that women exit the field to “have families”. This simply is not true. And it would seem that in many cases, when women left for family reasons, it was not because they wanted to abandon their careers, but rather because employers in the field failed to provide appropriate flexibility for these women to continue and succeed
Second, the overall reasons that women choose to exit or never bother entering are wholly different than reasons I would expect men to report for leaving. Specifically, most of the reasons women sited had to do with how they were treated as women, including things like gender bias and sexual harassment.
There’s ever ongoing debate about whether recruitment or retainment of women should get more attention. And women’s “confidence” in their abilities, such as mathematics, continues to create fodder.
Personally, I find both topics frustrating. For a dive into some of the Lead to Soar views on confidence, check out this podcast episode.
Regardless, in many cases, researchers are referring to the phenomenon of girls losing confidence in their capabilities in STEM around the age of ~12. I agree this is an important cultural systemic issue to address; this is work that requires attention from psychologists, educators, parents, family members, and society at large. My concern is that a lot of the STEM-hyping flashy photo opps for professionals volunteering at primary schools… detracts from the real work that still needs to be done. The work = creating equitable workplaces and supporting the women who have earned engineering degrees to choose to enter and stay in the profession for the long haul.
A last aside on this. Here’s a small example of I mean by society at large. One of the 2022 papers looked at the experiences of a group of young women who participated in a SWENext program, which is for high school students. “Respondents reported having been excluded physically by male peers who took control of material, excluded socially (ignoring, avoidance), or denied recognition…their accounts are consistent with those reported in research and memoirs discussed in earlier literature reviews that found that women interested in engineering often encountered a chilly, hostile climate that caused some of them to look elsewhere.” This behavior isn’t new, and these young men learned this behavior somewhere…
There’s some growing attention of the experiences of persons of different sexual identities. It’s great to see this because we need more data. However, this short excerpt indicates there’s still much work to be done on the DEI front in engineering: “Campbell-Montalvo et al. (2022) interviewed 29 undergraduates, finding that students who were sexual minorities continue to experience problems with ‘fit’ as a result of things such as refusal to use preferred pronouns and negative reactions to self-expression that did not fit gender norms.
“Beddoes (2022) interviewed 18 early-career civil engineers, the majority of whom were female, about their experiences at work. She found that women reported a range of problems, including having their competence doubted, being sexually harassed, and gender discrimination in job assignments and performance evaluations. As a result, the women felt a lower sense of commitment to their employing organization, and several were already considering leaving the field altogether.”
2022 literature featured an uptick evaluations of affects of the pandemic on women in the workplace. Generally speaking across industries, it’s been widely reported that the pandemic had stronger negative implications for women, particularly working mothers. However, I didn’t see anything referenced in this lit review on women in engineering specifically. There was more of an emphasis on women in university or preparing to enter university for engineering.
The number of women earning STEM employment and degrees has increased over the long-term, but that has slowed substantially or even plateaued in recent years.
The SWE Berlin Roundtable
Initiatives for women’s representation are often well-intentioned, but are also often not assuredly affecting change. One example mentioned was mentoring programs. It was also noted that the roundtable participants generally saw many programs that appeared to be exercises in “checking a box,” what others might call performative DEI.
On DEI in STEM, the roundtable participants noted, “In situations with limited resources and/or a questionable level of commitment on the part of upper management, gender equity programs may be eliminated before they have had time to prove their effectiveness and be replaced with the latest trend to “look good.”
I was sad to see that there wasn’t a single Black Woman on this panel.
The Women of Color in Engineering Collaborative
This mostly highlighted the formation of this group, their initial work to decide on definitions and areas of focus. More info here about how to get involved.
I have hesitated to share findings about research on the behaviors of women who have persisted in male-dominated STEM fields. One particular study I read found that every single woman they interviewed had been sexually harassed or assaulted at work one or more times and not a single one of them reported it.
As a podcaster and speaker, I’ve been concerned that even reporting on such “persister behaviors” could be misconstrued as advocacy for others to repeat their behaviors. Or misconstrued as me advocating that women should have to simply “toughen up” as these women in the past.
In these cases, the behavior of persisters would be more appropriately termed - coping mechanisms for survival in the industry.
As you seek information to bolster your case to create support structures for women in your organization, I implore you to carefully consider the findings you use and what they imply for how the system (not women) seriously needs to be fixed.
If you come across more recent publications on the state of women in engineering or women in STEM, particularly if it looks at retention or the affects of Covid-19 on STEM women’s careers, please send it my way.