<p>education 75%
engineering 20%
biology 57%
math 39%
physical sciences 39%
business 40%</p>
<p>I was surprised at how high the percent was for females in math, physical sciences, and business. Then why so low in engineering? Is biology dominated by women?</p>
<p>The figures were tallied by me from the IPEDS website.</p>
<p>I think of 40% as surprisingly high for women in the physical sciences and math because
(1) it is so much lower in engineering, and
(2) women are stereotypically averse to math-intensive fields -40% is almost 50-50, although I know efferts are being made to attract women to male-dominated fields. Perhaps the efforts are succeeding., which is good. But why is it still so low in engineering?</p>
<p>It would be interesting to know what the percentage of women is in various professional and graduate degrees programs as well. I know that in veterinary medicine (DVM) programs, women constitute approximately 2/3 of the program candidates -- this seems to correlate well with the IPEDS statistic cited by collegehelp indicating that 57% of undergraduate biology majors (one of the standard undergraduate majors for preveterinary students) are female. I wonder what the statistics are for medical school students as well as some of the other health professions requiring advanced degrees?</p>
<p>Collegehelp's numbers for math, engineering and physical sciences look right--</p>
<p>
[quote]
math 39%
engineering 20%
physical sciences 39%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>According the American Chemical Society,</p>
<p>
[quote]
The role of women in chemistry is continuing to grow. They earned 51.9% of the 2004-05 chemistry bachelor's degrees, 48.6% of the master's, and 34.4% of the Ph.D.s
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And the American Institute of Physics reports that approximately 21% of all undergraduate physics degrees granted in 2005 went to women. </p>
<p>And according the NSF, the numbers of women receiving undergrad degrees in mathematics has remained stable over the past 30 years at 35%.</p>
<p>As for the disparity between the engineering and math/physical sciences degree numbers for female students, I think you have to look to the historical data.</p>
<p>In 1976 fewer than 1% of ALL engineering degrees granted in the US went to women (NSF numbers). In 1972, women accounted for about 8% of all physics bachelor's awarded (AIP numbers) and 17% of all chemistry degrees (ACS numbers). The number of women getting math or computer science degrees between 1976 and 2005 remained relatively stable at about 35%. (NSF numbers)</p>
<p>Wow, I'm surprised that the engineering numbers are as <em>high</em> as they are. Seems like I'm perpetually one of six out of sixty, or one of three out of forty.</p>
<p>The figures are a bit misleading because they mask the subfields within each field. For example, within physical sciences, women tend to study biochemistry and chemistry, and not physics. Within engineering, you'll find more women in bioengineering, biomedical engineering, and industrial engineering, and much fewer in electrical, computer, and mechanical (I believe these 3 average about 12-15% women). Even within electrical engineering, women tend to study "softer" areas such as signal processing and not semiconductors or integrated circuit design, for example.</p>