---
title: "Women in STEM"
chunk: 2/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_STEM"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:38:16.104709+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Female college graduates earned less on average than male college graduates, even though they shared the earnings growth of all college graduates in the 1980s. Some of the salary differences are related to the differences in occupations entered by women and men. Among recent science and engineering bachelor's degree recipients, women were less likely than men to be employed in science and engineering occupations. There remains a wage gap between men and women in comparable scientific positions. Among more experienced scientists and engineers, the gender gap in salaries is greater than for recent graduates. Salaries are highest in mathematics, computer science, and engineering, which are fields in which women are not highly represented. In Australia, a study conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown that the current gender wage gap between men and women in STEM fields in Australia stands at 30.1 percent as of 2013, which is an increase of 3 percent since 2012. In addition, according to a study done by Moss, when faculty members of top research institutions in America were asked to recruit student applicants for a laboratory manager position, both men and women faculty members rated the male applicants as more hireable and competent for the position, as opposed to the female applicants who shared an identical resume with the male applicants. Faculty members were willing to give the male applicants a higher starting salary and career mentoring opportunities.

=== Education and perception ===
The percentage of Ph.D.s in STEM fields in the U.S. earned by women is about 42%, whereas the percentage of Ph.D. in all fields earned by women is about 52%. Stereotypes and educational differences can lead to the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. These educational disparities begin as early as the third grade according to Thomas Dee, with boys advancing in math and science and girls advancing in reading. According to UNESCO, as of 2023, 122 million girls worldwide are out of school, and women still account for nearly two-thirds of all adults who cannot read.

== Representation of women worldwide ==

UNESCO, among other agencies including the European Commission and The Association of Academies and Societies of Sciences in Asia (AASSA), has been outspoken about the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields globally.
Despite their efforts to compile and interpret comparative statistics, it is necessary to exercise caution. Ann Hibner Koblitz has commented on the obstacles to making meaningful statistical comparisons between countries:

For a variety of reasons, it is difficult to obtain reliable data on international comparisons of women in STEM fields.  Aggregate figures do not tell us much, especially since terminology describing educational levels, content of majors, job categories, and other markers varies from country to country. 

Even when different countries use the same definitions of terms, the social significance of the categories may differ considerably. Koblitz remarks:

It is not possible to use the same indicators to determine the situation in every country.  The significant statistic might be the percentage of women teaching at the university level.  But it might also be the proportion of women at research institutes and academies of sciences (and at what level), or the percentage of women who publish (or who publish in foreign as opposed to domestic journals), or the proportion of women who go abroad for conferences, postgraduate study, and so on, or the percentage of women awarded grants by national and international funding agencies.  Indices can have different meanings in different countries, and the prestige of various positions and honors can vary considerably.

=== Africa ===
According to UNESCO statistics, 30% of the Sub-Saharan tech workforce are women; this share rose to 33.5 percent in 2018. South Africa features among the top 20 countries in the world for the share of professionals with skills in artificial intelligence and machine learning, with women representing 28 percent of these South African professionals.

=== Asia ===

A fact sheet published by UNESCO in March 2015 presented worldwide statistics of women in the STEM fields, with a focus on Asia and the Pacific region. It reports that, worldwide, 30 percent of researchers are women; as of 2018, this share had increased to 33 percent. In these areas, East Asia, the Pacific, South Asia and West Asia had the most uneven balance, with 20 percent of researchers being women in each of those sub-regions. Meanwhile, Central Asia had the most equal balance in the region, with women comprising 46 percent of its researchers. The Central Asian countries Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were the only countries in Asia with women as the majority of their researchers, though in both cases it was by a very small margin.

==== Cambodia ====
As at 2004, 13.9% of students enrolled in science programs in Cambodia were female and 21% of researchers in science, technology, and innovation fields were female as of 2002. These statistics are significantly lower than those of other Asian countries such as Malaysia, Mongolia, and South Korea. According to a UNESCO report on women in STEM in Asian countries, Cambodia's education system has a long history of male dominance stemming from its male-only Buddhist teaching practices. Starting in 1924, girls were allowed to enroll in school. Bias against women, not only in education but in other aspects of life as well, exists in the form of traditional views of men as more powerful and dignified than women, especially in the home and in the workplace, according to UNESCO's A Complex Formula.