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Despite the impressive record of advancing toward higher education, women are substantially underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields compared to men. Less is known about the factors that explain gendered patterns of participation in STEM in countries with dissimilar national characteristics and educational systems. To fill this gap in the literature, this study first examines the historical trends of female representation in STEM fields cross-nationally. Then, this paper explores the relationship between women’s and men’s enrollments in STEM with various structural, national characteristics. Recognizing that the relationship may vary by subfields of STEM, the study further investigates the association separately for natural science and for engineering. Using time- and entity-fixed effects panel regression models pooled between 1970 and 2010, the study’s analyses built on earlier studies on gender segregation across fields of study and gender inequality in higher education. The findings suggest that the common assumption of tight, positive linkage between societal development and participation in STEM holds for only men at an aggregate level under the period covered. The authors find a negative association between national economic development and women’s participation in STEM, especially for engineering. On the other hand, they find positive associations between men’s enrollment in STEM as well as women’s enrollment in other fields of study with women’s participation in STEM. Taken together, the results suggest the significance of the diffusion of an inclusive logic in higher educational institutions.

Over the next 25 years, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) occupations will increase at rates higher than those in any other professional field. The inevitable rise in career opportunities, and the multiplicative impact across technology in a wide range of fields, will continue to create gaps that can and should be filled by professionals with diverse skill sets. It is essential to increase equitable access to future available jobs for historically underserved populations, such as women with autism, as they possess skills and perspectives that offer different approaches to job tasks in STEM fields. Considering the intersectional barriers that women face in the workforce, we have written this chapter to bring much needed attention to the interventions that employers can and should enact to support the women of Generation A. We offer the FACES framework (Facilitation, Awareness, Connection, Exposure, Support) as a guidepost for companies and organizations that endeavor to support women with autism in professional preparation and on-the-job development. We corroborate our framework recommendations with labor market data that offers insight into future projections regarding STEM fields and the associated opportunities and careers.

Community colleges are an under-recognized but vital component of higher education. Public two-year colleges provide a foundation for baccalaureate degree attainment, educate a skilled math and science workforce, and support local economic development. Our research, which examines women STEM faculty at community colleges, highlights the role of gender in reproducing advantages and disadvantages within the academy.

Data were collected by face-to-face interviews with 27 women faculty at nine community colleges in Ohio. We utilized semi-structured interviewing techniques to examine key dimensions such as decision-making leading to employment in two-year institutions, perceived advantages and disadvantages of such work, job satisfaction, and challenges to balancing career and family.

Results indicate considerable satisfaction among women faculty members, but contradict a popular stereotype that work at community colleges is easier for women with families. Despite relative parity in terms of occupational composition, pay, and tenure, community colleges are gendered in that they lack formal programs, institutionalized support, and leadership opportunities to support women.

Adjunct faculty play an important role in higher education but are underrepresented in our sample. Future research is needed to examine the unique situation of part-time faculty.

Community colleges are uniquely poised to contribute to improving gender equality for women in STEM. Understanding community colleges and the academic careers of women in STEM employed by these institutions is a vital step in our nation’s efforts to develop systemic approaches to increase representation and advancement of women in STEM careers.

This paper aims to explore the motivations behind women in a developing South Asian country – Sri Lanka – to embark on entrepreneurship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, which is a doubly masculine hegemony operating within a culturally nuanced gendered context.

The study employs a qualitative research approach, conducting in-depth semi-structured interviews with 15 STEM women entrepreneurs, following the theoretical lenses of push and pull motivation theory and gender role theory.

Although the motivations of STEM women entrepreneurs cannot be exclusively categorized as either push or pull factors, the pull factors had a greater influence on the participants in motivating them to become entrepreneurs. The primary motivators for starting businesses in STEM were: inspiration from something or someone, inner calling, the identification of business opportunities, the need for flexibility, necessity and/or desire to help society. It was often difficult to identify one dominant motivator in many instances, as many factors were interlinked to motivate women to start a business. The study also revealed that gender ideologies could stifle the participants' motivation, while the inner need to break these gender ideologies implicitly stimulated their motivation.

The study contributes to and expands the knowledge of STEM women entrepreneurs in general and to the limited existing knowledge of STEM women entrepreneurs in developing countries specifically. The paper brings contextual novelty as Sri Lanka produces more female STEM graduates than men, which is unique compared to most other parts of the world.

This invited paper aims to explore current knowledge and recent trends within published management research to illustrate the development and contribution of research on this topic and to outline promising future research directions.

A systematic literature review of 34 articles between January 2018 and August 2022 has been undertaken, which reflects the increased scholarly attention, in recent years, upon the topic of women entrepreneurs in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

This review highlights that this topic remains under-explored and that recent research tends to explore STEM women's entrepreneurial activity in different country contexts. The opportunity exists to advance theoretical understandings of how gender is operationalised within gendered contexts and places.

This paper reviews research to date and offers suggested avenues for further research.

The aim of this article is to explore the perceptions of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields in two ethnic groups (majority Serb and minority Hungarian) in a multiethnic region – Vojvodina, in Serbia – from an intersectional perspective.

A qualitative study was implemented, capitalizing on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with university faculty members from two ethnic groups working in a multiethnic region of Serbia (Vojvodina) in the STEM field of studies. Intersectionality as a theoretical approach was applied to reveal the interconnectedness between gender, ethnicity and field of studies.

The intersectional analysis indicates that minority Hungarian women are more conservative and less inclusive toward other women in STEM, thus they continue to build and enforce gender-based stereotypes. Their lack of inclusiveness is due to having had to overcome a situation of “double jeopardy” (Almquist, 1975) when building a career in STEM, being both members of an ethnic minority and women in STEM. Majority Serb women have adopted masculine patterns of behavior, try to blend in, and become “one of the boys” (Powell and Sang, 2015) in order to diminish the gender penalty and be seen as equal to men. Both minority and majority women agreed that deeply rooted gender stereotypes prevent women from choosing a career in STEM and identified the need for more inclusive education programs at all levels and for more female role models in STEM.

The study contributes by increasing understanding of ethnic minority and majority women's issues in STEM studies in Serbia from an intersectional perspective. It may be relevant to policy makers and contribute to the development of policy recommendations that steer more women in general and ethnic minority women specifically toward STEM, with the ultimate goal of enabling Serbia to develop not only socially but also economically. The paper contributes to the limited research on the STEM-related career experiences of ethnic minority Hungarian women and majority Serb women in Serbia and in the Western Balkans in general.

This study aims to explore the challenges and barriers encountered by Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) women entrepreneurs in an emerging country context – Sri Lanka – within a context of strict gender role stereotyping beliefs and norms.

Using qualitative research methodology, 15 in-depth, in-person, semi-structured interviews were conducted with STEM women entrepreneurs using the theoretical lenses of intersectionality and social role theories in tandem.

Findings revealed that participants were confronted with an array of structural/administrative and gender-related challenges at the intersections of gender, entrepreneurship and characteristics mapped with STEM fields. Accordingly, lack of access and reach to networks and opportunities, procedural obstacles, difficulties in staffing, difficulties in obtaining finances, lack of understanding and support from family and society, difficulties in managing work-life, and legitimacy obstacles appear to restrain the participants in starting and running their businesses. These challenges have their roots embedded in a complex web of ideologies and expectations related to gender.

This research contributes to the scant body of literature on STEM women entrepreneurship in general and specifically to the literature on challenges facing STEM women entrepreneurs from the perspective of a non-Western – emerging economy, which is built on strong cultural strictures and gender ideologies.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a meta-analysis of existing research on gender discrimination/gender gap and women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in the UAE, specifically, and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries in general because of very limited number of articles published on the subject. It will give future researchers insights into the topics, methodologies and findings of such research from 1999–2019.

This study conducts a meta-analysis of 72 articles using the Wildcard operator search method and the Boolean operator to perform an integrative literature search related to gender discrimination studies done in relationship to or specific to the UAE.

In total, 88 papers related to the UAE and gender gap and women were identified. The articles were narrowed down to the ones published in high-ranked or Scopus journals (72). The findings suggest a decreasing trend in gender discrimination, but the issue still persists, requiring efforts from policy-makers, society and government to ensure gender parity is achieved. Academic research on women in STEM/SET workplace, specific to the UAE and the region, continue to slowly advance, with very few articles published in the same.

The study provides insights into gender gap research done in the past ten years specific to the UAE national women and gender gap in general and their career choices and prospects in the STEM/SET domain.

There is a need to focus research on Emirati women in STEM careers to develop more insights into gender gap perceptions of Emirati women and identify challenges and methods to close the gender gap in STEM careers.

This paper brings a holistic perspective to the meta-analysis of research on the gender gap and women in the UAE’s STEM domain.

The study examines the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship for women in STEM who have experienced a mid-career break. As studies on this subject are rather scarce, it also makes an important contribution to the literature by providing key insights into the entrepreneurial journeys of women in STEM who have experienced a career break and have started their own enterprises. The findings could be used by governments to intervene in the identified areas of difficulty and to facilitate the entrepreneurial endeavours of women in order to bring this community back into the workforce.

The study maps the entrepreneurial journeys of 23 women with a STEM background who turned into entrepreneurs after experiencing a career break. Qualitative data was collected through personal interviews with women entrepreneurs and was then analysed to interpret the results.

While the study confirms the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship among well-educated middle-class women with a STEM background who face constraints related to career advancement and work–life balance, it also provides insights on various aspects related to their entrepreneurial development. This includes aspects such as their motivation to start a business, major barriers they face in developing their businesses and the strategies they use to handle those barriers. Suggestions for policy development are also proposed.

In addition to studying the entrepreneurial aspect of a rather underexamined segment of women in STEM who have experienced a career break, the study also examines the scope of the emancipatory potential of entrepreneurship for this segment of women. To the best of our understanding, no such study on STEM women has been carried out in developing nations in spite of the fact that this segment of women forms an important techno-economic resource which remains largely underutilised in developing economies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate career choices by female graduates from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to determine factors that influenced their entry, abandonment or persistence of STEM careers.

Life history narratives were collected from a sample group of employed citizens and expatriate women (all STEM graduates) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Content of interview transcripts was analyzed for emergent themes of influence on these participants career decisions.

Four significant themes of calling were found: gift of intellect, belief in a faith, shared community and meaning of work. A typology of calling was constructed to reflect these themes influences on the entry, abandonment or persistence of women in a STEM career.

The results of this study were from a small sample of women in a particular country. The implication is to extend this study to a larger number of participants and to other countries to generalize the results.

Insight into career decisions of female STEM graduates impacts on employee recruitment and retention policies within those professions.

Research originality is evident, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, as this is the first study to explore the influence of calling for careers of STEM women working in the Middle East North Africa region.