: Women in STEM often experience gender-based micro-aggressions and harassment. This is particularly true in male-dominated STEM disciplines. Such victimizations may place women at heightened risk for psychopathology. Yet, there has been little research examining the mental health of women in STEM. We compare anxiety/depression, trauma symptoms, and suicide risk for women majoring in gender-balanced/unbalanced STEM compared to non-STEM disciplines at institutions of higher education (IHEs). : Data were collected from undergraduate women ( = 318) at five IHEs in the U.S. Sampling was stratified by male-dominated STEM, gender-balanced STEM, male-dominated non-STEM, and gender-balanced non-STEM majors. Data were analyzed with fixed effects linear regression. : Contrary to expectation, women in male-dominated STEM did not report more trauma or psychopathology than their peers. However, women in gender-balanced STEM majors reported more anxiety/depression and trauma symptoms than non-STEM women and women in male-dominated STEM majors. : These data suggest that matriculating into certain STEM fields may have an impact on women's mental health. IHEs should ensure women in STEM are provided the structural supports to maintain their health, academic success, and professional trajectories.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2023.2299426 | DOI Listing |
J Am Coll Health
January 2024
School of Nursing, Center for Violence Prevention, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, USA.
: Women in STEM often experience gender-based micro-aggressions and harassment. This is particularly true in male-dominated STEM disciplines. Such victimizations may place women at heightened risk for psychopathology.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSoc Sci Med
December 2023
Center for Violence Prevention, University of Texas Medical Branch, United States.
Background: Recent research has found that gender parity (i.e., the ratio of women to men) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) disciplines is associated with sexual violence (SV) victimization for women.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSex Roles
April 2023
Department of Computer Science, Ball State University, Muncie, IN USA.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for college faculty, with evidence that it has the potential to exacerbate pre-pandemic gender inequities in work demands (Tugend, 2020). The impact of the pandemic may be particularly difficult for women in male-dominated STEM fields such as computer science that pose additional challenges and had high attrition rates among women faculty pre-pandemic (NSF, 2019; Weisgram & Diekman, 2017). The present study examined the mechanisms through which gender may have implications for changes in turnover intentions due to the pandemic among computer science faculty, with a focus on changes in work-family conflict and workplace attitudes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDemography
June 2023
Department of Sociology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
What is the relationship between gender segregation in higher education and gender segregation in the labor market? Using Fossett's (2017) difference-of-means method for calculating segregation indices and data from the American Community Survey, we show that approximately 36% of occupational segregation among college-educated workers is associated with gender segregation across 173 fields of study, and roughly 64% reflects gender segregation within fields. A decomposition analysis shows that fields contribute to occupational segregation mainly through endowment effects (men's and women's uneven distribution across fields) than through the coefficient effects (gender differences in the likelihood of entering a male-dominated occupation from the same field). Endowment effects are highest in fields strongly linked to the labor market, suggesting that educational segregation among fields in which graduates tend to enter a limited set of occupations is particularly consequential for occupational segregation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Interpers Violence
July 2023
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
It has been argued that increasing the number of women in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields could mitigate violence against women by advancing gender equality. However, some research points to a "backlash" effect wherein gains in gender equality are associated with heighted sexual violence (SV) against women. In this study, we compare SV against undergraduate women majoring in STEM disciplines to those majoring in non-STEM disciplines.
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