Major Choices: What Pushes Women Out of STEM Fields?

Although women have entered the workforce and obtained degrees in higher education in increasing numbers over the past several decades, the wage disparity between genders persists. This phenomenon can be partially explained by differences in choices of college majors: women tend to choose majors associated with lower-paying jobs, such as education and psychology, while men tend towards majors connected with higher-paying jobs, such as those associated with science, technology, engineering and math (commonly referred to as STEM fields). An open question is what factors contribute to these differences in major choices.

In “Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?” researchers Adriana D. Kugler, Catherine H. Tinsley and Olga Ukhaneva analyze whether female students are more reactive to low grades than male students, and whether or not this reactivity is responsible for differences in final major selection by gender. They build off previous research that suggests women are more sensitive to negative feedback than men in classes. The authors use data from a private university in the Northeastern United States for every student who attended from 2009 to 2016.

First, the researchers identify several factors that do not appear to predict changes in major; secondary school achievement, employment prospects of the major, and faculty gender ratio appear to be largely irrelevant. Additionally, when it comes to switching majors, both the presence of a female teacher and the number of female classmates have virtually no impact on a woman’s decision. Furthermore, in contrast to past research and stereotypes suggesting that women respond more strongly than men to an unexpectedly poor GPA, the authors find that men tend to be more sensitive to a poor GPA than women. Men and women are equally likely to change their major when they get poor grades in major-related courses. However, this phenomenon does not apply to STEM majors, where female students react more sensitively than male students to low grades.

Next, the authors use the psychology of stereotypes to explain why bad grades might affect women disproportionately. They posit that programs designed to encourage women to pursue STEM majors may instead discourage them by signaling that women are not ideally suited for these types of majors. Due to this perception, some female students anticipate a lack of success in STEM majors, which poor grades may then reaffirm. As a result, they consider opting out of STEM majors when they get an additional signal of poor fit in the form of low grades.

In conclusion, Kugler, Tinsley and Ukhaneva find little evidence that women are more responsive to low grades in major-related courses than men. Their interpretation of the data suggests that the stereotyping of STEM majors as masculine, combined with social signals suggesting that women are less suited to these fields, leads to a higher rate of major switching among female students when those students also receive poor grades.

Looking forward, the authors argue that because both men and women are attracted by the prospect of higher earnings, spreading information on STEM majors’ high returns is an important step towards encouraging more female students to major in STEM fields. However, research also suggests that fields become lower-paying as more women enter. As a result, the long-term viability of this strategy may be limited. Without carefully crafted policies that examine all aspects of the major choice issue and consider unintended consequences like the STEM signaling issue, policymakers are unlikely to achieve a gender wage gap reduction.

Article source: Adriana D. Kugler, Catherine H. Tinsley, and Olga Ukhaneva, “Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?” NBER Working Paper No. 23735 (2017).

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