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Purpose The underrepresentation of women in engineering has important consequences for meeting the need for a larger, talented scientific and technological labor force. Increasing the proportion of women faculty in engineering will help increase the persistence probabilities of women undergraduate and graduate students in engineering, as well as contribute to the range and diversity of ideas toward innovations and solutions to the greatest engineering challenges. This study aims to examine the association among gender, family formation and post-PhD employment patterns of a cohort of engineering doctorates. Design/methodology/approach Using the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Doctorate Recipients data, 2001–2010, descriptive and multinomial logit regression analyses are conducted to illustrate the career trajectories of engineering PhDs over a ten-year period. Findings The career trajectories of engineering PhDs are nonlinear, and transitions between employment sectors commonly occur over the ten-year time period studied. Although women engineering PhDs with young dependents are less likely to be employed initially after PhD completion, they tend to enter the workforce in the academic sector as time progresses. Early post-PhD employment as a postdoctoral researcher or in the academic sector contributes to the pursuit of the professoriate downstream. Originality/value While previous studies tend to focus on the early career outcomes of science and engineering students, this study contributes to the literature by focusing on the long-term career outcomes of engineering doctorates. Research findings provide engineering PhD students and PhDs with more information regarding potential post-PhD career trajectories, highlighting the multitude of career options and transitions that occur over time. Research findings also provide higher education administrators and doctoral program stakeholders with foundational information toward designing and revitalizing professional development programs to help PhD students prepare for the workforce. The findings have the potential to be applied toward helping increase diversity by shaping policies and programs to encourage multiple alternative career pathways to the professoriate.
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Paradigm Wars Revisited: A Cartography of Graduate Research in the Field of Education (1980–2010)
Education entails conflicting perspectives about its subject matter. In the late 1980s, the conflict developed into a war between interpretive and causal paradigms. Did the confrontation result in a balance between these warring sides? We use text analysis to identify research trends in 137,024 dissertation abstracts from 1980 to 2010 and relate these to students’ academic employment outcomes. Topics associated with the interpretive approach rose in popularity, while the outcomes-oriented paradigm declined. Academic employment remained stably associated with topics in the interpretive approach, but their effect is moderated by the prestige of the students’ institutions. The relation between topic popularity and employability provides insight into field change and how the benefits of cultural shifts fall along the lines of institutional power.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1827477
- PAR ID:
- 10116051
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Educational Research Journal
- Volume:
- 57
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0002-8312
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- p. 612-652
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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