Women now earn more than half of all STEM degrees, a pinnacle and necessary credential for advancement in many STEM professions. However, women remain in STEM occupations at half the rate of men.
The 2019 Transforming STEM Leadership Culture report from the Association for Women in Science says that women leave their STEM fields after they have expressed an interest in STEM, have succeeded in rigorous programs to develop their knowledge, earned college-level degrees, and entered the workforce. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that diverse teams, especially in leadership, outperform homogeneous teams in innovation, research quality, decision-making, and complex thinking and bolster their organization’s financial success. Despite the benefits of diversity in leadership, organizations are not adequately addressing the barriers women, especially women of color, encounter in their pursuit of STEM leadership roles. In fact, among the primary reasons cited by a diversity of women for leaving their STEM fields altogether are pay and promotion inequities. This second report in the AWIS Grand Challenge Series, Transforming Leadership Culture, deepens our understanding of the leadership barriers STEM women face and provides organizations with steps they can take to create more inclusive leadership cultures.
Read the PDF of the report at:
https://www.awis.org/leadership-report/