Gender Earnings Gaps in STEM Fields: Exploring the Role of Job Tenure

Cyrus Schleifer , University of Oklahoma
Ann M. Beutel, University of Oklahoma

Using data from the Current Population Survey for 2003 to 2017, we consider how job tenure shapes gender gaps in earnings for college-educated STEM and non-STEM workers in general and for four STEM subfields: computer, engineering, science, and mathematics. We find the gender gap in earnings decreased across the time period of our study for non-STEM workers but not for STEM workers and increased by job tenure for non-STEM workers but decreased by job tenure for STEM workers. Our analysis of the four STEM subfields indicates that women working in engineering and math fields experience large gender disadvantages across additional years of work experience (e.g., a greater than 300 percent increase in the expected gender gap in pay across 20 years of work in engineering), while those working in computer and science fields see more stable to slightly decreasing disadvantages in the gender pay gap with additional years of work.

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 Presented in Session 6. Health & Mortality & Aging