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Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

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dc.contributor.authorMorgan, Stephen, L.
dc.contributor.authorGelbgiser, Dafna
dc.contributor.authorWeeden, Kim, A.
dc.date.accessioned2017-10-12T18:14:14Z
dc.date.available2017-10-12T18:14:14Z
dc.date.issued2013-07
dc.description.abstractIn this article, we analyze gender differences in college major selection for respondents to the Education Longitudinal Study (2002-2006), focusing on educational pathways through college that lead to science, engineering, or doctoral-track medicine occupations and to non-doctoral track clinical and health sciences occupations. We show that gender differences in college major selection remain substantial, even for a cohort in which rates of enrollment in postsecondary education are more than ten percent higher for young women than for young men. Consistent with other recent research, we demonstrate that neither gender differences in work-family goals nor in academic preparation explain a substantial portion of these differences. However, the occupational plans of high school seniors are strong predictors of initial college major selection, a finding that is revealed only when occupational plans are measured with sufficient detail, here by using the verbatim responses of students. We also find that the association between occupational plans and college major selection is not attributable to work-family orientation or academic preparation. Finally, we find gender differences in the associations between occupational plans and college major selection that are consistent with prior research on STEM attrition, as well as with the claim that attrition also affects the selection of majors that are gateways into doctoral-track medicine. We discuss the implications of the predictive power of occupational plans formed in adolescence for understanding sex segregation and for policies intended to create a gender-balanced STEM and doctoral-level medical workforce.en_US
dc.identifier.citationMorgan, Stephen L., Dafna Gelbgiser, and Kim A. Weeden. 2013. “Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection.” Social Science Research 42(4): 989-1005.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1813/52655
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherSocial Science Researchen_US
dc.relation.doi10.1016/j.ssresearch.2013.03.008en_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International*
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/*
dc.subjectcollege majoren_US
dc.subjecteducationen_US
dc.subjectgenderen_US
dc.subjectoccupational plansen_US
dc.subjectSTEMen_US
dc.titleFeeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selectionen_US
dc.typearticleen_US

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