Women Are Closing the Gap in Enrollments in Graduate Degree Programs in STEM and Health Fields

New data from the National Science Foundation show that in pre-pandemic America enrollments in graduate programs in science, engineering, and health fields at U.S. academic institutions were increasing. The statistics show that enrollments in master’s degree programs in these fields had increased by 7.8 percent from 2017 to 2019. During the same period, there was a 4.2 percent increase in doctoral students in these fields and a 2.3 percent increase in postdoctoral researchers.

In 2019, there were 408,228 master’s students, 281,889 doctoral students, 66,247 postdoctoral researchers, and 30,349 doctorate-holding nonfaculty researchers in science, engineering, and health fields at U.S. academic institutions.

The increase in enrollments of women in these disciplines increased far faster than the rate for enrollments as a whole. Between 2017 and 2019, enrollments of women in master’s degree programs in science, engineering, and health fields at U.S. academic institutions rose from 177,839 to 202,460, an increase of nearly 14 percent. For men, the increase was only 2.5 percent. The number of women students in doctoral programs in these fields was up 6.8 percent. This was nearly triple the rate of increase for male enrollments in doctoral programs in these fields. The number of women postdocs in these fields increased by 4.7 percent between 2017 and 2019. For men, there was a tiny increase of 0.8 percent

In 2019, women made up 49.6 percent of all enrollees in master’s degree programs in science, engineering, and health fields at U.S. academic institutions. They were 43.5 percent of all doctoral students in these fields and 40.9 percent of postdoctoral researchers.