Women’s Participation in Physics Higher Education: The Leaky
Pipeline Revisited
Joanne Cohoon, Simonetta Liuti, Dustin Kidd
INTRODUCTION
Physics stands out among the sciences for failing to attract a substantial
proportion of the bourgeoning population of female academics. “[L]arge numbers of
women receive M.D.’s, law degrees, and engineering degrees. These male-dominated
fields require (to varying degrees) familiarity with technical equipment, commitment to
long hours, mathematical and analytical skills, just as physics does. Yet, physics picked
up only a handful of women compared to these fields,” (Ivie and Stowe 2000, 6). Despite
having requirements similar to other sciences, physics has not shown similarly large
increases in women’s participation especially at the top levels of the profession.
This paper explores the pipeline model for increasing women’s representation in
physics. This model predicts that women will reach the highest levels of the physics
profession in due course, as their increased numbers at the entry to ‘pipeline’ in primary
school and secondary school progress through the profession. However, leaks in the
pipeline can affect outcomes.
The Pipeline Model
Many efforts have been dedicated to improving women’s employment in the
academy following the changes in the civil rights laws in the early 1970’s (Kellough
1990). Intervention programs have been designed based on the Pipeline Model
(Schiebinger 1999), which proposes to increase the number of women interested in
science by building a steady supply of young women “flowing” into the pipeline, with the
hope of increasing the likelihood that a substantial number of them will subsequently
“propagate” upwards. In other words, filling the pipeline starting from the bottom is seen
as a mechanism to improve the overall number of women in the academy, all the way up
to the top echelons of the academic career.
Support for the effectiveness of this reasonably impermeable pipeline comes from
the Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics. Their study,
“Women in Physics, 2000” (Ivie and Stowe 2000), identifies many positive changes in
women’s participation in physics. Among these changes:
1. By 1997, almost half of all high school physics students were female
2. 20 physics departments in the United States (excluding women’s colleges) had
more than 40% women among their bachelor’s degree recipients in the 1994-1998
period
3. Salary differences between males and females at equivalent levels of physics are
largely non-existent
Most importantly, women’s participation in all levels of physics has increased
significantly since the early 1970s.
Although they also find that women’s proportional participation decreases at each
increasing level of academic rank and at each increasing level of institution (see Table 1),
Ivie and Stowe argue that time must be taken into account when measuring the
achievement of professional status.
“[C]onsidering the number of women receiving their PhDs in the past, women are
not underrepresented on physics faculty. This conclusion is based on a 1998
survey of male and female members of AIP’s Member Societies. Full professors
who identified themselves as physicists received their PhDs an average of 29
years before the survey date. At that time, just 3% of PhDs in physics were
awarded to women. Therefore, women’s representation among full professors of
physics is about what we would expect. When we look at other ranks, women’s
representation is better than we might expect,” (Ivie and Stowe 2000, 9).
Allowing sufficient time lag for achieving the professional level suggests that there are
no major leaks in the pipeline once students have earned their undergraduate degree.
From this perspective, efforts to improve female representation should be focused at the
entry point. Little, if anything, needs to be done at the university level; the field of
physics need only wait until the new influx of women has made its way through the
pipeline and female representation will improve.
Table 1. Percent of Faculty Positions in Physics That Were Held by Women, 1994 and 1998
1994
%
Full Professor
3
Academic Rank
Associate Professor
8
Assistant Professor
12
Other Ranks
8
PhD-Granting
5
Type of Department
Master’s-Granting
7
Bachelor’s-Granting
7
1998
%
3
10
17
13
6
9
11
Total
6
Table source: Ivie and Stowe, “Women in Physics, 2000,” AIP.
Data sources: Blake, “1993-94 Academic Workforce Report,” AIP, and Ivie and Stowe, “1997-98
Academic Workforce Report,” AIP.
8
However, the rate of increase of women at the top echelons of their academic science
career is still very slow, or almost static, especially in physics (Valian 1998). Despite
effective early intervention programs, there is still a disproportion of women to men in
physics larger than 1:5. Figure 1 illustrates the continuous drop in the number of women
at each level of the academic ladder and many highly trained women continue to be lost
from physics.
The research reported here shows that tertiary education is a major point for
leakage in the physics pipeline. The leakage becomes apparent when observing that
retention of undergraduate physics majors into graduate school has improved more for
men than it has for women. Current graduation rates at the bachelor’s and doctoral levels
demonstrate that retention rates for female physicists continues to lag behind that of men,
and behind retention rates of women in other scientific disciplines.
The findings of this paper have important implications for collegiate and graduate
physics education. Preserving the increased female participating achieved by efforts at
earlier points in the progression toward a career in physics requires that universities act to
stem the flow of women out of physics.
METHODS
RESULTS
The number of students in the field of physics has remained constant.
The field of physics has not grown during the period of study, at either the
undergraduate or graduate levels. The number of students receiving bachelor’s degrees
in physics has remained in the area of 4,000 per year. The number sometimes rises and
sometimes declines BY ABOUT HOW MUCH?, but has shown neither a steady increase
in enrollment nor a steady decrease. This is also true for the physical sciences1 generally,
where the number of degree recipients has remained around 15,000 per year. GRAPH
(THIS GRAPH (OR TABLE?) WILL SHOW BACHELORS DEGREES FOR EACH OF
THE FIVE YEARS)
ADD NEW PARAGRAPH ON PHDS AND A GRAPH/TABLE
The gender composition of physics education is increasingly female.
Women received only 7.33% of bachelor’s degrees in physics in 1973. That
number has steadily (SHOW GRAPH TO DEOMONSTRATE STEADY CHANGE)
risen to 16.59% in 1993. The pattern is supported when interval years ONLY OR BOTH
THIS AND ANNUAL are examined.2 At the doctoral level, women’s representation
grew from only 5.61% of PhD recipients in 1978, to 13.64% of PhD recipients in 1998.
Again, interval analysis shows steady growth. This increase in the proportion of women
in physics is likely due, at least in part, to very deliberate efforts by the educational
system to increase the exposure of young girls to the sciences, and additional efforts to
keep women interested in physics through high school and college. WHEN DID THESE
EFFORTS BEGIN? DID IT COINCIDE WITH THE FEMALE INCRESE? (AFTER A
REASONABLE TIME LAG?) (RECOMMENDED READING?)
The broad category ‘physical sciences’ includes physics, chemistry, astronomy, and ‘other physical
sciences’.
2
This study uses 5-year intervals, so the periods of analysis are 1973-1978, 1978-1983, 1983-1988, 19881993, and 1993-1998.
1
Although women make up a higher proportion of the field of physics than they
did in the past, their representation is significantly less than in the broader field of
physical sciences. Women composed 33.58% of bachelor’s degree recipients in the
physical sciences in 1993, and 25.22% of the doctoral recipients in the physical sciences
in 1998. SPECIFY THE SIZE OF THE GAP BETWEEN THE DISCIPLINES. The
proportional discrepancy between physics and the physical sciences remains constant
through all years of analysis, even as women’s representation has increased in both
physics specifically and the physical sciences generally.
Retention of physics students through graduate school has increased.
We define retention in physics as continuation from the bachelor’s degree through
the PhD. The data set used for this report does not permit tracking the same cohort.
Rather, it simulates a cohort by comparing snapshots of graduation numbers at two points
in time, lagged to allow for the normal progression from one degree to another.3 Because
only a small minority of American citizens attends graduate school, retention rates are
low in all fields. GIVE EXAMPLES OF MATH, CS, BLS (?) AND A GRAPH.
However, in the field of physics, the retention rate has increased for both men and
women. The retention rate of 1973 bachelor’s degrees in physics to the PhD in 1978 is
20.45%. The retention rate in physics steadily rose over time to 34.14% of those awarded
bachelor’s degrees in 1993. This increase in retention is also true of the physical science
generally, although retention in physics is actually higher than in the larger field of
3
A five-year period of PhD work is assumed. Also, this analysis assumes direct continuation from the
bachelor’s to the doctorate, and does not account for non-educational periods after the bachelor’s degree is
received.
physical sciences. The retention rate for the 1993 - 1998 snapshots in the physical
sciences is 27.50%, as compared with 34.14% for the field of physics.
Retention has improved more for males than for females.
The retention rate of males from the bachelor’s to the doctoral level in physics
was 20.83% among the 1973 class of bachelor’s degrees. This rate steadily improved to
35.35% for the 1993 class of bachelor’s degrees. The retention rates of females rose
from 15.65% for the 1973 class to 28.06% for the 1993 class. While these numbers
demonstrate that retention improved for both genders, they also indicate a gender
disparity in retention improvement. Retention improved for males in physics by 14.52
percentage points. For females, retention improved by 12.41 percentage points.
(**ALSO CALCULATE THE SIZE OF THE IMPROVEMENTS FOR EACH (HOW
DO I DO THIS?), BECAUSE IMPROVING MORE ON A HIGHER RETENTION
RATE PROBABLY MAKES A BIGGER DIFFERENCE THAN DOES A LESSER
IMPROVEMENT ON A LESSER RETENTION RATE.) The difference may seem
small, but it has important consequences for the gender makeup of the field of physics.
Because the retention of women lags behind the retention of men, the already small
proportion of women preparing for careers in physics consistently decreases between the
bachelor’s and doctoral levels.
NO COMMENT YET. The under-retention of females in physics is particularly
surprising in light of claims that are being made about the success of educational
programs designed to increase women’s participation. “Women in Physics, 2000,” a
report by Rachel Ivie and Katie Stowe of the American Institute of Physics, shows that
women’s enrollment in physics at the high school level increased from 39% in 1987 to
47% in 1997.
DISCUSSION
CONCLUSION
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