– Regardless of how prior achievement is measured, very little of the strong and persistent gender gap in physical science and engineering majors over time is explained.
– The results indicate that whether focusing on the high end of the test distribution or focusing more broadly on average differences across several indicators including course-taking, conditioning on achievement does extremely little to diminish the gender gap in PS/E majors across time.
– While models that include measures of comparative advantage in math/science (vs. English/reading) appear to account for more of the gender gap in field of study than the other models considered, overall the evidence we present strongly undermines the assertion that women’s underrepresentation in PS/E fields is due to deficits in prior achievement.
– Students whose race and social class background are typically associated with educational disadvantages (including Black and lower socioeconomic status youth) were not underrepresented in PS/E majors at any time point. This offers some evidence consistent with the assertion that STEM fields are universalistic, such that social background characteristics per se are irrelevant for entry.
– The authors have offered powerful evidence that long-standing underachievement arguments fail to provide the answer to the question of gender inequality in representation in STEM postsecondary fields.