Gender equity and the gender gap in STEM: is there really a paradox?

Abstract

This study uses an epidemiological approach to consider how culturally-inherited beliefs about appropriate gender roles may affect women’s relative representation in STEM. Prior literature has generally documented an inverse relationship between gender equity and women’s relative representation in STEM, known as the gender-equity paradox. When limiting to the sample of home countries to those considered in prior literature, I obtain robust evidence of a gender-equity paradox on both first and second-generation immigrants living in the USA. However, when I consider the full sample of home countries available, women’s relative representation in STEM no longer appears to decrease as equity increases. These results cast doubt on the existence of a gender-equity paradox between culturally-inherited beliefs about gender equality and women’s representation in STEM and have important implications for policy design.