Gender in safety and engineering

Gender in safety and engineering In the technical sciences, often known as the STEM fields for science, technology, engineering, and math, there remains a good deal of bias against women. A 2013 study titled “How Stereotypes Impact Women’s Careers in Science” (Ruben, Sapienza, and Zingales, 2013) and published in the prestigious proceedings of the National Academy of Science discusses bias in hiring men or women in science careers. In their abstract, the authors summarize their findings this way:

Without provision of information about candidates other than their appearance, men are twice more likely to be hired for a mathematical task than women. If ability is self-reported, women still are discriminated against, because employers do not fully account for men’s tendency to boast about performance. Providing full information about candidates’ past performance reduces discrimination but does not eliminate it.