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 One surprising way to make it happen: Suffer through a recession.
New research has found that increased unemployment leads both
genders to move toward fields associated with better earnings and
job prospects, and that women are more likely to shift their majors
in that direction than men.
The switch to more math-intensive majors suggests that there is a
large pool of students who are capable of succeeding in these fields
even if they might choose other areas of study in better economic
times, according to a paper published by Institute for the Study of
Labor, a German research center.
This behavior contradicts the tiresome argument that women are less
capable of success in STEM fields.
The researchers' findings show that there is a talent pool, said
Erica Blom, who worked on the research while getting her PhD in
economics from Yale University. "The problem isn't that there aren't
enough women with the talent or inclination."
No one knows why women seem to be more sensitive to economic
conditions than men, although previous research has shown women's
decisions to work and to invest in higher education are more closely
associated with economic conditions than are men's labor market
decisions.
Still, policymakers should consider this sensitivity when trying to
entice women to enter STEM fields. One way may be to focus on the
economic payoff by framing education in STEM majors as an
investment, the researchers said.
The study used the American Community Survey, an ongoing Census
Bureau study, to examine what fields people have chosen over the
past 50 years. The sampled population represents about 5 percent of
all college graduates over that period.
The researchers found that recessions induce women to choose "gender
atypical" fields and to choose more difficult, math-intensive
majors, even after controlling for better employment and earnings
prospects.
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Among women, business fields upticked the most when unemployment
rose. Other large increases in the share of women occurred in
nursing, accounting, technical health fields, computer-related
fields, engineering and economics.
Fields that lost the largest share of women included education,
literature and languages, sociology, psychology and other liberal
arts studies.
Among men, the largest gains during periods of high unemployment
were in natural science, pharmacy, accounting, engineering, nursing
and chemistry and pre-med. Majors in early education and sociology
dropped by the most, followed by other education fields, literature
and languages, leisure studies, history and psychology.
The study was not trying to show that business and STEM majors are
"better" than liberal arts majors, researcher Benjamin Keys hastened
to point out. Nor was it gauging which fields make people happier or
more fulfilled, or which careers are best for society.
But the study did find that increased income from switching to
better-paying majors helped offset some of the lifetime loss of
income that happens when people graduate in a recession. The offset
made recessions "10 percent less painful" for recession-era
graduates, the researchers found.
"It is simply a fact that people taking a math-intensive course of
study end up getting paid more down the line," Keys said.
(Editing by Beth Pinsker and Steve Orlofsky)
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