Paula England, Paul Allison, Su Li,
Noah Mark,
Jennifer Thompson, Michelle Budig, and Han Sun
Abstract
Using data on the number of men and women receiving
doctorates in all academic fields from 1971 to 1998, the authors
examine changes in the sex composition of detailed fields. The
women’s proportion of those receiving doctorate degrees
increased dramatically from 14 to 42 percent. All fields, including
the most male-intensive fields, experienced an increase in their
percentages of females, but the rank-order of fields in percentages
of females changed little. Thus, in some fields well over half
of doctorates go to women today. The authors then consider whether
men avoid entering fields after they reach a certain percentage
of females, thereby exacerbating the “tipping,” meaning
fields that previously had a male majority become almost exclusively
female. To test this, they use a negative binomial regression
model with fixed effects. The model shows that the higher the
female percentage of those getting degrees in a field in a given
year, the smaller the number of men that enter the field four
to seven years later. The pattern resembles Schelling’s
(1971, 1978) model of neighborhoods moving from a low to a very
high percentage of blacks because of whites’ responses to
the initial integrative moves by blacks. If men continue to react
in this “woman-avoiding” way, it is unlikely that
academia can move toward an integrated equilibrium, despite the
fact that women’s field choices are moving in a slightly
nontraditional direction. They examine trends in segregation using
three indices. While indices disagree on the trend for the 1980s,
they all show a decline in segregation in the 1970s, but little
if any decline by the 1990s. Men’s avoidance of fields as
they feminize might be impeding desegregation.
Paula England, Sociology and
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University Paul Allison, Sociology, University of Pennsylvania Su Li, Doctoral Student, Sociology, Northwestern
University Noah Mark, Sociology, Stanford University Jennifer Thompson, Education Statistics Services
Institute Michelle Budig, Sociology, University of Massachusetts Han Sun, Doctoral Student, Sociology, Northwestern
University
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