Statistics on Women in Physics
1) American Institute of Physics (AIP) June 2000 report about the number of women in physics (pdf) relative to the other sciences. According to this 2000 AIP study, nearly half (47%) of all students taking physics in high school were women. Yet, the number of women earning bachelor's degrees in college drops to 19%. Why the decrease in women's participation when there is not a corresponding decrease in men's participation? AIP posits that "it is possible that women still experience subtle discrimination leading them away from physics."
2) General information from AIP's Fall 2000 Physics Trends about women's career choice by bachelor's degree earned shows that biology is still leading with 54% of its bachelor's graduates being women. Even chemistry shows a respectable 45% of its bachelor's graduates are women:
Whereas computer science shows quite a decrease as do physics and engineering--though physics and engineering degrees have been on the rise.
3) Other sources for statistics include: the AIP 2002 Academic Workforce Report, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Report on Education Equity and Women in Math and Science reports.
4) I gave a Powerpoint presentation about this topics at the Illinois Academic Advisors Association Conference in November 2002.
5) Physics Chairperson, Dr. Richard F. Martin, Jr., wrote an article about the underrepresentation of women in physics for the Physics Department's 2002 Directions Alumni magazine (pdf download).
Page last updated 8/5/04gfj