Sociocultural Factors Restrict Sex Equality in Doctorate Recipients?

By Nicholas Dias
niccdias@gmail.com

It is no secret that females have made groundbreaking headway in closing sex gaps – and then some ­– in United States postsecondary institutions since the 1960s.

Popular media have by now thoroughly reported studies showing that female bachelor’s degree recipients now even outnumber their male cohorts. For example, data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates that females constituted around 57 percent of bachelor’s recipients in 2012.

Ironically, articles considering sex equality among master’s recipients are much rarer, despite existing data that contend females do even better in this arena: The NSF data just cited also shows that females earned about 60 percent of master’s degrees awarded in 2012.

Yet, the truly forgotten front in the fight for postsecondary education sex equality is that over doctorates, where several studies have shown trends that are somewhat less encouraging.

A recent post by Joe Boeckenstedt, the Associate Vice President of Enrollment Management and Marketing at DePaul University, illustrates these circumstances. Boeckenstedt’s interactive visualization of 2013 data from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is below.

To be sure, growth in the proportion of female doctorate awardees has been considerable. Between 1983 and 2013, females increased their share of awarded doctorates by over 12 percent, claiming majorities in the humanities, life sciences and social sciences and maintaining their margin in education.

Even with these 30 years of marked progress, however, females still amounted to only 46.25 percent of total doctorate awardees in 2013.

This is because males still greatly overshadowed females among engineering and physical science doctoral graduates, constituting more than 77 and 70 percent of graduates, respectively. In fact, according to the data, sex gaps of doctorate awardees in the two fields increased by just over 40 percent from 2003 to 2013.

The damage of sociocultural elements that daunt females from entering science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields is well-documented.

One stand-out study that demonstrates these outcomes is that of Harvard University researchers Kane and Mertz. The researchers compared the Social Watch Group’s Gender Equity Index (GEI) to average math performance of fourth- and eighth-graders in 26 and 52 countries, respectively, as measured by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Correlations between countries’ GEIs and average female math performances had coefficients exceeding 0.479 (p < .001).

However, shortages of females in engineering and the physical sciences may not be the only reason that females continue to be underrepresented among nationwide doctoral graduates. Some states still lag far behind others with regard to sex equality in total doctoral graduates.

While states such as Vermont can boast percentages of female doctorate recipients topping 56 percent, other states like Wyoming dawdle at rates as low as 33 percent (Figure 1). That is a range of around 23 percent. Females receive about or above their fair share of doctoral degrees in only 16 states.

A multiple regression analysis suggests a few reasons as to why these differences exist.

Each state’s percentage of female doctorate recipients is predicted by two other characteristics: its proportion of self-identified liberals (β = 0.68%, p < .001) and its proportion of females between the ages of 20 and 44 needing contraception (β = -0.47%, p < .05). The correlation between proportions of self-identified liberals and percentages of female doctorate recipients is visualized in Figure 2.

In other words, as states’ percentages of female doctorate recipients rise, (1) their proportions of self-identified liberals also rise and (2) their proportions of females needing contraception fall.

There are several apparently possible implications of these results. Pregnancy may deter females from completing a doctoral education. Liberals may elect representatives that are more inclined to support measures to bring about sex equality in education, or they may be more likely to pursue a doctoral education in-state.

In any case, the statistics doubly underscore the import of considering sociocultural factors in discerning why sex inequality within postsecondary institutions persists in the United States.