Who works in STEM? How degree field of study, gender, and parental occupation shape graduates’ likelihood of working in STEM

Thesis

This thesis explores the broad question of ‘who works in STEM?’ by investigating aspects of two domains: the role of higher education, which is examined by looking at the gendered association between degree field of study and field of occupation (‘horizontal education-job matches’), and the role of social origin, specifically the association between parental STEM occupation and own STEM occupation (‘occupational inheritance'). Possible mediators of these associations are considered throughout. The thesis makes several contributions to the literature, the most notable being (i) its focus on taking a work life course perspective, which continues to be relatively scarce both in the study of horizontal education-job matches and in the study of occupational inheritance, and (ii) its exploration of the role of social origin as a determinant of STEM work. The thesis takes a quantitative approach and explores the research questions through logistic cross-sectional and panel regressions using data from the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70). Firstly, examining the role of higher education, I demonstrate that gender plays an important role in shaping horizontal education-job matches in what I call ‘Core STEM’ fields (computer science and IT, engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences), with women being less likely to ‘benefit’ from their STEM degree. This pattern persists, and even strengthens, over the work life course. However, despite being important in shaping graduates’ likelihood of working in STEM, degree field of study and gender cannot explain a considerable proportion of the variance in graduates’ likelihood of being found in STEM work. Hence, secondly, I turn to the role of social origin and show that occupational inheritance plays an important role in determining whether graduates work in STEM. Those with a ‘STEM parent’ are substantially more likely to enter STEM at labour market entry but are also more likely to leave STEM over the work life course.

Authors: Steinberg, IKD

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-goak9ynw1
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: microclass; horizontal education-job matches; DESO; technology; engineering and mathematics; school-to-work transition; occupational inheritance; science; STEM; direct effect of social origin
• Subjects: Social mobility--Great Britain; Women graduate students; Graduate students in science; School-to-work transition