Gender Differences in Time Span to Earn a Doctoral Degree

New data from the National Science Foundation shows that for women who earned doctoral degrees in 2012, the average number of years that they spent from the time they graduated from college to the time they earned their doctorate was 9.4 years. For men, the average time span from bachelor’s degree to doctorate was 8.7 years.

Women actually took less time, on average, than men to earn doctorates in the physical sciences, social sciences, and engineering.

Women took an average of 7.2 years from bachelor’s degree to doctorate in engineering disciplines. This was the shortest time to a doctorate for women in any major discipline. In contrast, for those women who earned doctorates in education, the average time span was 15.2 years.