New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that women are making progress in closing the gender gap in degree attainments in the so-called STEM fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In 2009, women earned 134,634 degrees in STEM fields. This was up from 127,134 STEM degrees in 2001. In 2009 women earned 31 percent of all degrees in these fields.
But if we eliminate two-year associate degrees from the calculations, we see that women do even better. (The number of women earning associate’s degrees in STEM fields dropped by more than 25 percent from 2001 to 2009.) From 2001 to 2009, the number of bachelor’s degrees earned by women in STEM fields was up 17 percent. For master’s degrees, women showed an increase of 30.4 percent. The most dramatic increase was in doctorates. From 2001 to 2009 the number of doctorates earned by women in STEM fields increased from 4,146 to 7,417. This is an increase of 78.9 percent.