Does More Mean Less?: Interest Surplus and the Gender Gap in STEM Careers

Abstract

The persistent gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) career choice represents a perplexing problem for researchers and policy makers alike. We contribute to the body of research on the gender gap in STEM careers by testing a “surplus model” of vocational interests as a predictor of STEM career choice. The model suggests that, controlling for ability, female adolescents with strong STEM-related interest should be less likely to pursue STEM careers when they also have strong interests in other areas, due to wider career options. We tested the surplus model in a large national longitudinal data set and translated the results into differences in annual wages. Our findings illuminate the predictive validity of a surplus model of interests on STEM career choice across gender, provide insight into the gender gap in STEM, and suggest opportunities for future research.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 34 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.