Not a pipeline but a highway: Men's and women's STEM career trajectories from age 13 to 25

Current concerns with diversifying and expanding the STEM workforce has elicited extensive efforts to increase women's adherence to a “no leak pipeline” to match that of men. However, is such a trajectory optimal for boosting women's STEM career attainment? If so, among which types of STEM occupations? Moreover, studies have often suggested that women are underrepresented primarily in the pipeline of “white-collar”, mathematical, engineering, physical, and computer science (MEPCS) occupations, but to what extent does this conclusion hold true among other types of STEM careers? To answer these questions, we plotted men's and women's STEM career trajectories from age 13 to 25 using a U.S. national sample and categorized occupations by domain-specific knowledge (i.e., non-STEM, MEPCS, or LEHMS [life, ecological, health and medical sciences]) and educational requirements (i.e., “blue-collar” or “white-collar” STEM). We found gender similarities in STEM attrition, gender differences in STEM entry, and gender differences in STEM career attainment trajectories. For example, STEM workers rarely took a “no leak pipeline”, except women in LEHMS occupations. Moreover, in tracking the size of various STEM workforce, though small, women's MEPCS workforce expanded to nearly twice its size as participants grew from age 13 to 25; in contrast, the LEHMS workforce shrank to less than a third of its size among both men and women as they grew. Our results identify specific ways in which the STEM trajectories of men and women differ across various types of STEM occupations and thus provide an updated understanding of gendered STEM career trajectories. • Reverse gender gaps in attrition rates in health STEM versus physics-related STEM • Twice as many women switched into physics-related STEM as women switching out. • Health STEM and white-collar STEM shrank considerably among both women and men. • A “no leak pipeline” was observed only among women health STEM workers.