Driving American Innovation: Leveraging the Power of Women in STEM

As the United States works to catalyze domestic industry and innovation, it must develop a critical, yet drastically underutilized sector of the workforce to drive growth: women in STEM. It has been proven repeatedly that differences in thought—and therefore the exchange of different plans of action in the workplace—improve innovation and outcomes. As of 2021, women filled only 26 percent of core STEM jobs in fields such as physical science, technology, engineering, math, and social science. America’s innovation system could benefit greatly by empowering and unleashing the potential of many more talented women in its STEM workforce.

This discrepancy represents a calamity of sorts. Despite women accounting for over half of individuals with bachelor’s degrees, STEM degrees are overwhelmingly held by men, by about a factor of two, and women account for just 12 percent of U.S. innovators overall. But this discrepancy isn’t from lack of interest, rather the underrepresentation of women in STEM is known to start at an early age, with girls demonstrating interest at the young age of 11 and solidifying their decision by age 16. Unfortunately, due to a lack of support during these five formative years, around half of girls decide to stop pursuing STEM by age 16.

There are many national projects and organizations dedicated to helping women and girls succeed in STEM. In particular, the National Girls Collaborate Project (NGCP) has been able to influence the lives of over 20 million girls, encouraging them to start pursuing their interests in STEM at an early age. Partnering with over 42,000 organizations, from Google to Afterschool Alliance, NGCP aims to continue promoting women in the STEM workforce by presenting young girls with firsthand access to science teachers and STEM experts, something that is increasingly important as many K-12 science and math teachers do not have training in their fields. The National Science Foundation (NSF) estimates that while 90 percent of public middle and high school teachers hold related teaching degrees, at a middle school level, only 69 percent of math teachers hold math-related degrees, and only 76 percent of science teachers hold science-related degrees. To promote science and math for any student, they must be exposed firsthand to teachers who not only understand the material at a fundamental level but also understand the challenges in teaching the material.

NSF is primarily responsible for funding both federal and state programs dedicated to promoting women in STEM fields. It previously had a program called ADVANCE, which was dedicated to helping all underrepresented groups, whether that be on the basis of gender, race, or ethnicity, achieve equity in STEM fields. Under the current administration, this program has unfortunately been suspended. The U.S. Department of Labor offers a Women in Apprenticeship & Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grant that can help provide opportunities for women to receive further education or financial support for their research. However, many of these programs are facing increased scrutiny and ambiguity following president Trump’s recent executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing.” But amidst this administration’s push to curtail DEI initiatives, this shouldn’t come at the expense of effective programs that have been shown to encourage young women to engage in math and science studies and strengthen their interest in STEM fields. America needs the talents of women if its national innovation system is to thrive to its full extent.

Looking forward, women are making strides in the STEM workforce, though challenges remain. The demand in the field for highly skilled workers is increasing, and between 2011 and 2021 the STEM workforce grew by seven million, about two percentage points. During this same timeframe, the share of women in STEM grew by three percentage points. Continuing this trend will require more investment in female education across all levels, as well as continued discussion about how to promote female innovative empowerment.

We can track these metrics thanks to NSF, which routinely collects data regarding different demographics holding higher-level education degrees in STEM, and, fortunately, the number of women with bachelor’s, master’s, and PhD’s has steadily risen over the last decade. In 2012, the number of women graduating with a bachelor’s in science-related fields was 361,009, and in 2021, it was 546,991, an increase of over 50 percent. The number of women holding master’s degrees between 2012 and 2021 increased by 83,000, an increase of 64 percent. Lastly, women graduating with PhDs in STEM fields increased by 25 percent.

Being able to chart the increasing presence of women in STEM education is vital to understanding which areas still require improvement and why this number is still far behind the presence of men in STEM. Creating environments for women and girls in STEM settings must be a priority to ensure not only that opportunity for education is equitable but also that the best minds are tackling some of our most complicated problems.