The United States National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, or NCSES, has published Diversity and STEM: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities 2023, the most recent and comprehensive review of diversity trends in STEM employment and education.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields are crucial for innovation and progress in our world, yet women were historically underrepresented in these areas. It is true that in recent years, there has been an increased representation of women in STEM fields. This is due to a variety of factors, including increased attention on the issue of underrepresentation, as well as initiatives aimed at encouraging girls to pursue STEM careers and improving the work environment for women in STEM. As a result, more women are pursuing STEM careers, and companies are making a conscious effort to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. While there is still much work to be done, the increased representation of women in STEM is a positive development and a step towards a more diverse and inclusive future.

The United States National Science Foundation's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, or NCSES, has published Diversity and STEM: Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities 2023, the most recent and comprehensive review of diversity trends in STEM employment and education.

According to the new report, over the past ten years, more women, as well as people of color—Black, Hispanic, American Indian, and Alaska Native—have worked in STEM fields, diversifying the workforce. Additionally, more people of all ages are now earning degrees in science and engineering than they were in years past.

However, when compared to their total distribution in the U.S. population, those groups—as well as persons with disabilities—remain largely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, reflecting the greater equity concerns our country confronts.

Equal access to the STEM workforce is crucial because those positions are linked to higher pay and lower unemployment rates—regardless of sex, race, ethnicity, or disability status—and because they bring a diverse range of ideas, creativity, and skills to bear on innovation and discovery.

The Diversity and STEM report, which was formerly known as Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, is the first in this series to go beyond occupations requiring a bachelor's degree, an educational benchmark that represents only half of the STEM workforce.

According to the research, progress has been made by women and Hispanics in particular over the previous ten years in terms of both their attendance in higher education and their representation in the STEM sector. These overarching trends, meanwhile, are not present in all STEM jobs and academic disciplines.

In contrast to the social sciences, women make up substantially less of the workforce with college degrees in the computer and mathematical sciences, biological sciences, physical sciences, and engineering. Separately, a third of the workforce in STEM fields, which normally do not require a college degree for admittance, is made up of underrepresented minorities. However, in STEM, those positions typically have the lowest pay and highest unemployment rates.

Approximately 3% of the STEM workforce is made up of disabled individuals. Although the proportion of STEM professionals with at least one impairment has increased since 2011, it has stayed constant from ten years ago.

In 1977, NSF published its first statistics on underrepresented groups in STEM fields.Congress ordered the publication of this report every two years in 1980, and in 1994 it started including people with disabilities. 12.3 million women (35%) make up the STEM workforce today, together with 8.3 million persons from underrepresented minorities (24%) and 1 million people with impairments (3%).

Report Findings

Women received 50% of bachelor's degrees in science and engineering and 49% of associate's degrees, according to the study. In the STEM fields, women made up around one-third of the workforce (35%) and were routinely paid less than men.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of women, Hispanic, and Black students pursuing graduate degrees in science and engineering continued to rise.

Although they made up 31% of the total U.S. population in 2021, those of Hispanic, Black, American Indian, and Alaskan Native descent only made up 24% of the STEM workforce. Compared to jobs requiring a bachelor's degree or higher education, they were more likely to work in STEM fields requiring technical training or certification.

STEM professionals that are Hispanic, Black, American Indian, or Alaska Native make less money on average than STEM professionals who are white or Asian.

Hispanic students have made notable progress toward attaining associate's degrees in engineering and science. Between 2011 and 2020, the overall number of degrees awarded to Hispanic students tripled, increasing their proportion of associate's degrees in science and engineering to 32%.

Nearly one-fourth of those workers (24%) are Hispanics who work in STEM fields, making up nearly two-thirds (63%) of the workforce.

STEM workers of colour experienced higher unemployment rates in 2021 (6.6%) and 5.7% compared to white (2.9%) and Asian (2.3%) workers.

Between 2011 and 2020, fewer American Indian and Alaska Native students received bachelor's degrees in science and engineering as a share of all degrees conferred.

In 2021, 21% of workers with at least one impairment were employed in STEM fields, and 3% of the STEM workforce was made up of disabled individuals.

In 2021, 11% of doctoral holders in science and engineering said they had at least one impairment.

Easy access to technology and STEM can increase women's empowerment

Learning to read and write cannot be the main goal of education in the fast-paced society we live in. Young people, especially females, can benefit from STEM education by learning skills like lateral and critical thinking, spatial reasoning, problem-solving, engineering-design thinking, scientific investigation, and mathematics that they can use in a variety of vocations throughout their life. Additionally, it can enable women to take an active role in addressing pressing global issues like poverty, inequality, and climate change, but most importantly, it can support the causes of women's health and education. We can provide women an opportunity to actively engage in influencing the future by providing them with expanded and simple access to STEM education.

According to the most recent data, increasing the number of women in STEM fields has the potential to enhance women's overall incomes by $299 billion over the next ten years. Simply put, it is simply too expensive to exclude women from STEM education, and if we are serious about making progress toward gender parity, employability, and income mobility, women and girls must have easy access to STEM education. The woman with a STEM degree who will establish the workplace trends over the next 10 years will be committed to the Industrial Revolution.