Research into the obvious, but someone has finally done it: Three women researchers have studied the behavior of undergraduates in STEM fields, and concluded that there basically is no problem. From the abstract:
"The results show that high school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and that women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses. Moreover, women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues."
Furthermore current recruitment efforts to attract more women tend to be counterproductive. In an interview, the primary author says:
"Society keeps telling us that STEM fields are masculine fields, that we need to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, but that kind of sends a signal that it's not a field for women, and it kind of works against keeping women in these fields."
One of our female students told me that the women are interviewed endlessly, for one project or another: "tell us about your experience", "are you doing ok", "have you experienced sexism", and on, and on. That alone is enough to make them question their career choice.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:43PM (8 children)
How many people can I find in this thread touting the accuracy of this research who also say economics isn't science?
I'm sure it's just a coincidence that the submitter failed to mention the author of this paper: The National Bureau of Economic Research
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @09:51PM
Tempted to mod you down so less people notice your comment, causing more of them to commit the foretold hypocrisy.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bzipitidoo on Thursday September 07 2017, @10:19PM (1 child)
There's at least one person insinuating that there could be a bunch of hypocritical hard science snobs around here who disrespect economics but praise this article because they are ignorant of its source.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 07 2017, @11:09PM
Insinuating?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday September 07 2017, @10:27PM (1 child)
Economics is far from a mature science at the moment, and certain schools of economics are indeed wholly unscientific, but that doesn't mean I throw the whole field out with the bath water.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @10:20AM
Yes, we must keep the trickle down theory because that stimulates job creators.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 07 2017, @10:35PM
I look down on all the social sciences (including this), since they are almost never rigorous enough. I'm sure someone like VLM would count, however.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday September 08 2017, @03:11AM (1 child)
Although I may be skeptical of accepting the article 100%, I find myself looking at your comment and thinking "straw man".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 08 2017, @06:40AM
Why?