Introduction

• Author: McNally, Sandra
• Pages: 13-14

13

1. Introduction

The share of women achieving tertiary education has increased rapidly over time

and now e xceeds that of men i n most OECD countries. However, women are severely

under-represented in maths-intensive science fi elds, which are generally referred to as

STEM (science, technology, engineering, and maths). The under-representation of

women in these subject areas has received a great deal of attention. This is because

these fields are seen to be especiall y important for productivi ty and economic growth

(e.g. Griliches, 1992; Jones, 1995; Peri et al., 2015). The lack of women pursuing these

fields is seen to be a constraint on economic growth wi thin the European Union (EU).5

Furthermore, maths-intensive STEM fields are associated with occupations that have

higher earnings (i.e. reflecting the high labour market demand for people with

proficiency in these areas).6 Most economics papers that analyse the gender gap in

STEM motivate this interest by the gender wage gap (favouring men) because subject

of degree i s an i mportant part of the expl anation for thi s (Blau and Kahn, 2017; Card

and Payne, 2017; Francesconi and Parey, 2018; Machin and Puhani, 2003). One way to

encourage more people into STEM-related occupations at the same time as addressing

the gender wage gap is to encourage more women to engage in STEM at tertiary level.

This would also have the benefit of increasing diversit y in the workplace. Furthermore,

if the lack of female representation has partly to do with forms of discrimination that

come from stereotyping and an environment hostile to women, this is reason enough to

explore what drives such discrimination and how it might be addressed. Challenging

gender stereotypes and providi ng equal opportunities for men and women are goals of

the European Commission Gender Equality Strategy.7

The aim of this paper is to review evidence on e xplanations for the STEM gap in

tertiary education where good evidence exists. Most of t he literature defines STEM as

referring to sci ence, t echnology, engineering and maths. I will follow this convention

here, making it clear when I am referring only to particular fields. There is an extensive

literature on this subject across several disciplines, which includes several reviews (such

as Cheryan et al., 20178 and Kahn and Ginther, 2018). I will draw on these reviews and

other papers (including man y very recent papers) and will primarily focus on the issue

through the lens of an economist. As the range of issues covered is very broad, I make

no claim to be comprehensive on each individual topic. I cite the most relevant

references I could find from a search that has pri marily focused on the economics

literature and drawn on the reviews cited above.

I start with an introduction to the background context using statistics on field of

study from Eurostat and UNESCO and as reported in recent papers (Section 2). Then, I

discuss evidence on how well -prepared students may be for studying STEM at a later

stage (i.e. ‘preparedness’), making use of data from PISA and findings from the

literature (Section 3). I then discuss whether cross-country preparedness and STEM

5 https://eige.europa.eu/gender-mainstreaming/policy-areas/economic-and-financial-affairs/economic-

benefits-gender-equality/stem

6 Deming and Norway (2019) find that although the returns to STEM subjects are high during the earlier part

of an individual’s working life, they do decline with time for some subjects due to technological change. Kinsler

and Pavan (2015), show very high returns to science majors who work in related occupations.

7 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_20_357

8 Cheryan et al. (2017) consider review papers since 1990 in psychology, sociology and education on the topic

of women’s under-representation in STEM fields. They search databases in psychology, sociology, education

and economics. Their review is probably the most comprehensive available overall, though their focus is

mainly on the US and does not cover such a wide range of papers in economics as in Kahn and Ginther (2018),

or considered here. Many papers considered here have only been published since these reviews.