Gender, participation and attainment in STEM
A comprehensive overview of long‐term trends in the United Kingdom
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7148551 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Emma Smith (0009-0005-3138-8727, University of Warwick, corresponding author), Patrick White (0000-0001-7974-7323, Department of Criminology, Sociology and Social Policy University of Leicester Leicester UK) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 51 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 802-825 |
| Publication date | 2025-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | British Educational Research Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-1926 • E-ISSN: 1469-3518 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/berj.4102 |
| OpenAlex | W4405149556 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 40 |
There is a longstanding imperative from both government and industry for a workforce with the skills needed to drive forward the scientific and technological advances that are considered so crucial to the economic prosperity of the nation. However, the skills of this workforce have purportedly been both in short supply and inadequate for many decades, leading to the well‐established narrative of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) skill shortages. One solution to this challenge has been to encourage, through myriad policies and initiatives, more young people, particularly young women, to study more science for longer. This paper contributes to the literature on the supply of STEM workers by documenting the long‐term trends in the participation and attainment of girls and women in STEM education: from school science through to graduate entry into the highly skilled STEM labour market. Using population datasets that extend across seven decades and include millions of students, it shows that gendered patterns of participation in science subjects have varied little in recent decades, suggesting that efforts to increase the number of women studying science in school have not resulted in a substantial increase in well‐qualified female graduates entering highly skilled STEM jobs. Furthermore, studying STEM appears to be generally advantageous for men, in terms of field‐related employment outcomes, but is not always associated with such higher status occupations among women
Economic growth · Economics · Educational attainment · Government (linguistics) · Pedagogy · Political science · Population · Prosperity · Science education · Sociology · Women in science · Workforce · Career Development and Diversity · Demography · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · Higher Education and Employability · Psychology
The Impact of a Science Center Student Lab Project on Subject Attitudes Toward STEM Subjects and Career Choices in STEM Fields
Two Stories and a Metaphor
Identity-in-action through preservice teachers’ engagement with robotics
Tracking mathematics achievement gaps in England
The Role of Maths, Science, and English/Welsh GCSE Attainment in Post-16 Subject Progression
The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM
Whose Science? Whose Knowledge?
Explaining Course Enrollment Gaps in High School
What's So Special about STEM? A Comparison of Women's Retention in STEM and Professional Occupations
Friendship Groups, Personal Motivation, and Gender in Relation to High School Students' STEM Career Interest
Women and science careers
Nuancing the discourse of underrepresentation
Moving along the STEM pipeline? The long-term employment patterns of science, technology, engineering and maths graduates in the United Kingdom
Women into science and engineering? Gendered participation in higher education STEM subjects
Variations of Gender Gaps in the Labour Market Outcomes of Graduates across Fields of Study
Science World , High School Girls, and the Prospect of Scientific Careers, 1957–1963
Science for All? School Science Education Policy and STEM Skills Shortages
Women as a Reserve Army of Labour
Professional Role Confidence and Gendered Persistence in Engineering
Women's underrepresentation in science
Why do Women Leave Science and Engineering
Women, Science, and Academia
The Social Pipeline
The missing women in STEM? Assessing gender differentials in the factors associated with transition to first jobs
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |