Conducted in the summer of 2017 — before the recent revelations of sexual harassment by men in high-ranking positions were brought to the public’s attention — Pew Research Center’s survey asked 4,914 adults 18 years of age or older about their experiences working in a STEM field.
Here are eight survey insights on the tech industry’s gender gap.
1. Men hold more STEM jobs than women — at a rate of 82 to 18 — according to Wall Street Journal data from 2016 that honed in on big tech companies like eBay, Apple and Intel.
2. The share of women in STEM jobs varies across 74 occupations in the study — from 7 percent of women working as sales engineers and 8 percent as mechanical engineers, to 96 percent working as speech-language pathologists and 95 percent as dental hygienists. Here is a breakdown by sector of where women told Pew they work.
- Health-related jobs (75 percent)
- Life science jobs (47 percent)
- Math jobs (46 percent)
- Physical science jobs (39 percent)
- Computer jobs (25 percent)
- Engineering jobs (14 percent)
3. Of the 50 percent of women in STEM jobs that indicated they’ve experienced discrimination at work, jobs involving majority-male workplaces (78 percent), computer jobs (74 percent) or those with postgraduate degrees (62 percent) are more likely to face discrimination Only 19 percent of males in STEM jobs say they’ve experienced gender discrimination at work.
4. The most common forms of gender discrimination experienced by women in STEM jobs include: earning less than a man doing the same job (29 percent); having someone treat them as if they were not competent (29 percent); experiencing repeated, small slights in their workplace (20 percent); and receiving less support from senior leaders than a man who was doing the same job (18 percent).
5. Though 22 percent of women said they have experienced sexual harassment at work, 36 percent of women, compared to 28 percent men, said sexual harassment is a problem in their workplace.
6. African American (62 percent) workers also face discrimination at their STEM job for their race or ethnicity. Forty-four percent of Asians and 42 percent of Hispanics agreed.
7. The top reasons women elect to not work in a STEM job are:
- Faced discrimination in recruitment, hiring, promotion (39 percent)
- Not encouraged to pursue STEM from early age (39 percent)
- More difficult to balance work/family in STEM jobs (33 percent)
8. The top reasons African Americans and Hispanics elect to not work in a STEM job are:
- Less likely to have access to quality education to prepare them for STEM fields (42 percent)
- Not encouraged to pursue STEM from early age (41 percent)
- Less likely to believe they can succeed in STEM (33 percent)
Click here to download the full survey.
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