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Proletariat consideration for all women in engineering

By Lisa Eitel | November 5, 2018

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Only a third of American adults have college degrees; many who don’t consider higher education pointless or deem it unfeasible given other responsibilities such as parenting and making a living.

More specifically, 40% of non-college-degreed adults surveyed in a study commissioned by AEI Center on Higher Education Reform director Andrew Kelly (via GfK North America) consider college not worth the cost. Some of this amounts to personal preference or misperception.

On the latter, research from Georgetown University economist Anthony Carnevale confirms the tuition, loans, and time forgoing income for obtaining some majors (especially in liberal arts, social work, education, and anthropology) often coupled with high unemployment rates (or low salaries) for graduates in these fields can render the majors uneconomical. That’s especially likely if the degree was obtained at a pricy private university.

But most other degrees have impressive long-term returns … and nine out of the 10 most lucrative four-year degrees are in engineering. What’s more, pay disparities (between the salaries of women and men) for many engineering disciplines are relatively small or even nonexistent. But still only about 20% of graduating engineers are female. Visit designworldonline.com and search “Women’s Bureau” for specific quantitative data on this and other STEM professions. More after the hard data on all technical occupations.

Women's Bureau Employment • Occupation earnings

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2016
OccupationFull-time workersWomen in occupation as percentMedian earnings totalMedian earnings womenWomen's earnings as percentage of men's
Architectural and engineering managers144,8128.9%$130,293$130,255100%
Chief executives1,068,25823.8%$130,266$103,56473.4%
Computer and information systems managers564,74726.8%$103,513$95,60389%
Aerospace engineers114,95610.7%$102,350$91,98288.3%
Software developers, applications and systems software1,124,66118.3%$100,760$88,75987%
Chemical engineers57,81219.2%$100,425$84,13782.8%
Computer network architects92,8726.9%$98,374$100,471102.4%
Electrical and electronics engineers186,2147.9%$96,538$81,37082.4%
Engineers, all other471,81712.7%$93,058$85,46489.8%
Natural sciences managers17,91652.8%$92,161$76,76868.7%
Civil engineers311,00712.6%$86,606$75,05284.1%
Computer programmers370,51220.8%$85,795$80,52892.5%
Mechanical engineers245,5797.0%$84,537$84,03499.4%
Environmental engineers27,55227.6%$80,421$75,46892.3%
Industrial engineers, including health and safety183,61520.9%$79,761$75,75394.1%
Purchasing managers181,25547.9%$76,501$70,02385.1%
Industrial production managers220,26320.0%$76,077$70,07390.7%
Network and computer systems administrators192,29318.4%$73,483$69,12792.3%
Environmental scientists and geoscientists63,44932.5%$72,831$60,31576.1%
Technical writers47,36058.2%$71,388$70,13995%
Chemists and materials scientists77,02336.4%$70,594$63,42684.1%
Computer occupations, all other569,27221.8%$70,492$66,52193.5%
Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing1,182,66425.7%$65,716$54,07776.7%
Web developers138,04832.9%$63,173$56,86084.4%
First­line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers245,6836.9%$60,447$52,31386.2%
Other healthcare practitioners and technical occupations105,94143.9%$57,179$52,59484.9%
Engineering technicians, except drafters319,24017.6%$55,953$48,44883.1%
Chemical technicians56,74128.6%$52,188$48,58088.5%
Electricians647,9222.0%$51,278$50,08297.6%
Industrial and refractory machinery mechanics350,4163.2%$51,050$43,16984.3%
Pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters478,3291.6%$47,032$45,52596.8%
Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators, including pile­driver operators269,3132.4%$46,503$50,129107.8%
Computer control programmers and operators84,9078.8%$44,235$35,78578.9%
Computer operators75,14145.0%$42,199$38,04174.3%
Other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including wind-turbine technicians204,7555.2%$40,529$34,63784.9%
Welding, soldering, and brazing workers475,5475.5%$40,394$31,09776.3%
Crushing, grinding, polishing, mixing, and blending workers66,06812.4%$37,087$29,58277.6%
Automotive service technicians and mechanics726,4371.2%$36,634$28,34277.2%
Molders and molding machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic33,95916.8%$35,532$29,05677.7%
Metal workers and plastic workers, all other326,49821.0%$35,076$29,09679.2%
Cutting, punching, press machine setters • Operators and tenders, metal and plastic73,71116.9%$32,249$29,97190.6%
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators811,31737.0%$31,485$28,31384.7%
Electrical, electronics, and electromechanical assemblers105,46449.0%$31,438$29,68285.4%
Cutting workers51,48519.1%$30,780$26,19982.4%
Packaging and filling-machine operators and tenders204,70353.8%$27,178$24,79179%

So what about the more accessible option of community college or apprenticeships for middle-skills employment in high-tech fields — especially for those uninterested or unable to attend a four-year university? This is a significant opportunity for women, as the Brookings Institution estimates of the 26 million jobs in the U.S. requiring STEM expertise, 13 million of them are satisfied with less than a bachelor’s degree.

Here too, women miss out on much higher incomes garnered by relatively short training courses and certification in engineering and STEM-related trades. These include programming and coding, equipment and laboratory management, and machine operating — for which labor-market prospects are very bright. U.S. Department of Education data indicates that for the 100,000 STEM degrees and certificates men earn from community colleges every year, about 16,000 women earn the same.

Certificates conferred by community colleges

2009-2010 data • Source: U.S. Department of Education
MajorWomenMen
Health professions and related programs112,77528,354
Personal and culinary services12,6973,603
Education4,624973
Computer information sciences4,55510,191
Engineering technologies2,28313,668
Mechanic and repair technologies/technicians2,04936,768
Construction trades66515,442
Engineering25178
Mathematics and statistics213

Associate degrees conferred by community colleges

2009-2010 data • Source: U.S. Department of Education
MajorWomenMen
Health professions and related programs84,52615,778
Education11,5772,877
Computer and information sciences3,35910,860
Engineering technologies2,62815,629
Personal and culinary services2,5001,560
Mechanic and repair technologies/technicians78511,332
Mathematics and statistics317690
Engineering2821,902
Construction trades2103,073

Total STEM-related certificates and associates degrees conferred on women is 16,285 for the year studied; STEM-related degrees conferred on men in the same year is 101,231.

It’s a shame, because while college may not be for everyone, options for gainful employment, higher education chosen by the individual, and dignity in career should be.

Two sets of misperceptions about technical certifications persist. Responding to Kelly’s study, non-college-degreed adults overestimate the cost of community college and apprenticeships (by thousands of dollars) and underestimate how much training ultimately yields. In addition, women report perceiving industrial or STEM-related jobs as lonely, performed in loud and dirty settings, or requiring significant physical strength. Of course, that’s untrue of many modern sites for engineering research, design, fabrication, and automated manufacturing — and the high-tech jobs in them.

Programs abound to address these misconceptions, normalize the participation of women in technical fields, and boost STEM enrollment through support of female students in particular. Consider those for women entering technical training: The federal Perkins V Act funds technical education at secondary and postsecondary schools with gender-equity provisions to get more women into nontraditional careers (many STEM) considered so when women are 25% or less of the workforce. The National Science Foundation funds robotics and other apprenticeships for ultimately placing women into manufacturing and advanced assembly positions. The American Association of University Women or AAUW (among other things) provides fellowships and grants to further women in second careers.

Organizations to support women pursuing STEM degrees or professional advancement are perhaps more familiar to Design World readers — the Society of Women Engineers, the Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Women in Manufacturing (WiM), the Association for Women in Science, and the array of organizations to engage college-bound girls in primary and secondary schools.

All of these organizations are stellar. Perhaps we can go further, though — occasionally bridging the gap between the professional college set and the technical-trade set. Even regular Design World editorial considers the perspective of the degreed engineer first because after all, engineers are our readers. But big-picture discussions of STEM employment for women that omits consideration of those not privileged enough to get early encouragement and support (for a straight shot through college) miss half the picture.

The Brookings Institution attempts to quantify necessary levels of technical expertise for STEM work. High STEM indicates occupations needing a knowledge score of at least 1.5 standard deviations above the mean in one STEM field — such as network and computer systems administration, for example. Super STEM indicates occupations with a combined STEM score (summing scores from all fields) at least 1.5 standard deviations above a mean score — as for work as a biomedical engineer, for example.

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Filed Under: ALL INDUSTRY NEWS • PROFILES • COMMENTARIES, Women in Engineering, Networks • connectivity • fieldbuses

 

About The Author

Lisa Eitel

Lisa Eitel has worked in the motion industry since 2001. Her areas of focus include motors, drives, motion control, power transmission, linear motion, and sensing and feedback technologies. She has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and is an inductee of Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society; a member of the Society of Women Engineers; and a judge for the FIRST Robotics Buckeye Regionals. Besides her motioncontroltips.com contributions, she also leads the production of the quarterly motion issues of Design World.

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