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1. Are Women a Missing Audience for Science on YouTube? An Exploratory Study

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.610920  

   Landrum, Asheley R. (April 2021, Frontiers in Communication)

   null (Ed.)

   Educational science programming on digital video platforms such as YouTube wrestle with sometimes significant gender disparities in viewership. When men engage with science and technology content on digital platforms more than women, gender gaps in the understanding of, engagement with, and interest in STEM may intensify. Therefore, there is a critical need for research aiming to aid in our understanding of these gender differences. This study provides evidence that the gender gaps may exist not in the use of YouTube itself, but in the engagement with science and technology content on the platform. Furthermore, there are gender differences in the reasons for engaging with such content, with women, perhaps, more motivated by instrumental purposes than to satisfy their science curiosity. 

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2. How the Demographic Composition of Academic Science and Engineering Departments Influences Workplace Culture, Faculty Experience, and Retention Risk

   Griffith, Eric. E; Dasgupta, Nilanjana (January 2018, Social sciences)

   Although on average women are underrepresented in academic science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments at universities, an under appreciated fact is that women’s representation varies widely across STEM disciplines. Past research is fairly silent on how local variations in gender composition impact faculty experiences. This study fills that gap. A survey of STEM departments at a large research university finds that women faculty in STEM are less professionally satisfied than male colleagues only if they are housed in departments where women are a small numeric minority. Gender differences in satisfaction are largest in departments with less than 25% women, smaller in departments with 25–35% women, and nonexistent in departments approaching 50% women. Gender differences in professional satisfaction in gender-unbalanced departments are mediated by women’s perception that their department’s climate is uncollegial, faculty governance is non-transparent, and gender relations are inequitable. Unfavorable department climates also predict retention risk for women in departments with few women, but not in departments closer to gender parity. Finally, faculty who find within-department mentors to be useful are more likely to have a favorable view of their department’s climate, which consequently predicts more professional satisfaction. Faculty gender and gender composition does not moderate these findings, suggesting that mentoring is equally effective for all faculty. Keywords: gender; STEM; climate; retention; faculty 

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3. Gender Differences, or Lack Thereof, in the Early Home Science Environment

   https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.70034  

   Varnell, Suzanne; Kumar, Sona C; Westerberg, Lauren; Ehrman, Patrick; Herrera, Fabiola; Antony, Chellam; Closser, Avery H; Clark, Elizabeth; Purpura, David J (May 2025, Infant and Child Development)

   ABSTRACT As women are underrepresented in STEM and the home learning environment has been associated with children's science knowledge, this study focuses on the home science environment as an area where gender differences may occur. To identify potential antecedents of gender differences, this study examined whether there were mean differences in the frequency of parent engagement in science content, processes and resources by child gender and parent relation. 906 parents of 1‐ to 6‐year‐old children (67% female, 86% White, 50% female children) completed a cross‐sectional online survey about the home science environment. Results indicate no significant differences in the frequency of science engagement between parents of girls and parents of boys and between mothers and fathers (η² < 0.01). We did not find any significant gender differences in parents' reports of their frequency of engagement in early home science activities across content, processes and resources. 

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4. Gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship: Effects of the Affordable Care Act reform

   https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3594  

   Bao, Jiayi (February 2024, Strategic Management Journal)

   Abstract Research SummaryThis article examines whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance reform reduced the gender gap in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) entrepreneurship. I argue that the ACA mitigated mobility constraints imposed by employer‐provided health insurance and encouraged entrepreneurship with important contingencies: effects were limited to women because of gender differences in supply‐side cost reduction and demand‐side health insurance needs and were specific to women in STEM (vs. non‐STEM) entrepreneurship because of the human and financial capital needed to navigate insurance markets. Leveraging the ACA quasi‐experiment, I find consistent evidence of a reduced gender gap in STEM entrepreneurship. Surprisingly, the effects were driven by increased STEM entrepreneurship for married women founding unincorporated businesses. Qualitative interview insights and empirical findings provide explanations for these patterns. Managerial SummaryThis study examines whether the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) entrepreneurial gender gap can be reduced by institutional factors mitigating labor market mobility constraints imposed by employer‐provided work benefits. Through the lens of the US ACA reform, I find that broadened access to more affordable health insurance in the alternative individual insurance markets disproportionately encouraged female (vs. male) STEM (vs. non‐STEM) entrepreneurship, thus reducing the STEM entrepreneurial gender gap. Contrary to common assumptions, this effect is driven by married (vs. unmarried) women and is in unincorporated (vs. incorporated) self‐employment. The findings help discern which groups benefit from policy efforts to promote diversity in STEM entrepreneurship and imply that the effectiveness of employer‐provided work benefits as retention tools is dependent on various worker characteristics. 

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5. Exploring the stability of the gender gap in faculty perceptions of gender climate at a rural regional university

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301285  

   Bordieri, Michael J; Waddill, Paula J; Zhang, Qiaofeng; McCarthy, Maeve L; Fuller, Claire; Balthrop, David (April 2024, PLOS ONE)

   Dabija, Dan-Cristian (Ed.)

   Increasing awareness of gender barriers and biases in academic institutions is an essential component of institutional change strategies to promote equity and inclusion. There is an established perception gap in recognizing gender inequities in the workplace, whereby men faculty under acknowledge the stressors, barriers, and biases faced by their women faculty colleagues. This study explored the gender gap in faculty perceptions of institutional diversity climate at a rural comprehensive regional university in the United States. In addition to gender, differences across academic discipline and time were explored using 2 (men and women) x 2 (STEM and other) x 2 (2017 and 2022) between-groups ANOVAs. Results revealed a gender gap that persisted across time and perceptions of stressors, diversity climate, student behavior, leadership, and fairness in promotion/tenure procedures, with marginalized (women) faculty consistently reporting greater barriers/concern for women faculty relative to the perceptions of their men faculty colleagues. These findings are largely consistent with the extant literature and are discussed both with regard to future research directions and recommendations for reducing the perception gap and addressing institutional barriers to gender equity. 

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