Gender fairness prevails in most fields of academic science
Women are significantly underrepresented in many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, and attempts to understand why have only resulted in disagreement among researchers, the lay public, and policymakers. In a comprehensive new report, an interdisciplinary team of psychological scientists and economists aims to cut through the confusion, synthesizing available research and providing a host of new analyses to identify the factors that drive women's underrepresentation in STEM. Their analyses show that, despite many differences between the sexes prior to college—reflected in occupational preferences, math ability, cultural attitudes, and amount of AP coursework taken, for example—the playing field eventually levels for women who continue in most these fields once they earn their PhD.
