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Gender Differences in STEM Persistence after Graduation
Author(s)
Date Issued
June 2022
Date Available
30T15:45:17Z June 2022
Abstract
Much attention is focused on finding ways to encourage females to study STEM in school and college but what actually happens once women complete a STEM degree? We use the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey to trace out gender differences in STEM persistence over the career. We find a continuous process whereby women are more likely to exit STEM than men. Among holders of STEM undergraduate degrees, women are more likely to obtain a non- STEM master’s degree. Then, after entering the labour market, there is a gradual outflow of females during the first 15 years post-graduation so that females are about 20 percentage points less likely to work in STEM compared to their male counterparts. Conditional on leaving STEM, we find that females are more likely to enter the education and health sectors while males are more likely to enter the more lucrative business sector and that this can partly explain the gender pay gap for STEM graduates. Overall, our results suggest that policies that aim to increase the proportion of females studying STEM in school and college may have less effect than expected due to the lower attachment of females to STEM after graduation. Such policies may need to be augmented with efforts to tackle the greater propensity of females to exit STEM throughout the career.
Type of Material
Working Paper
Publisher
University College Dublin. School of Economics
Start Page
1
End Page
51
Series
UCD Centre for Economic Research Working Paper Series
WP2022/18
Copyright (Published Version)
2022 the Authors
Classification
I23
I26
J16
J24
J31
Language
English
Status of Item
Not peer reviewed
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
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