It’s staggering to think about, but 40 percent of women with engineering degrees either leave the profession or never enter the field. Why? Because it’s generally an “old-boys club” and that’s not in just one or two companies, it’s industry-wide.
This matters a great deal for our daughters, who are being widely encouraged to pursue STEM degrees, that is, science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Generally women who complete a complex degree and enter into a field like engineering are empowered by their achievements, have self confidence, and high self esteem. While conventional wisdom might say that these women face obstacles like a glass ceiling, a lack of self-confidence or a lack of mentors, a new study finds that the biggest pushbacks women engineers receive come from the environments they work in.
Nadya Fouad, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, surveyed 5,300 women who earned engineering degrees within the past six decades in order to figure out why so few stayed in engineering. She found that only 62 percent of respondents were currently working in engineering. Many called the engineering workplace unfriendly and even hostile to women. They also said that they felt many of these companies did not provide opportunities for women like them to advance and develop.
For the last two decades women have comprised 20 percent of engineering graduates, yet only 11 percent of practicing engineers are women. Compared with other skilled professions such as accounting, medicine and law, engineering has the highest turnover of women.
The conversation has been started. We need to work together to empower women in engineering to work together and bring about change. With increased dialogue, this problem can be solved. The future of an industry – and young women’s positions within it — depend on it.
Read more about Fouad’s findings at NPR.

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