Participation of Women in Science in the Developed and Developing Worlds: Inverted U of Feminization of the Scientific Workforce, Gender Equity and Retention

We find some surprising correlations regarding factors affecting the participation of women in science. For the whole world, when the percentage of women working in science in a country is plotted versus the per capita GDP of the country, the data fall on an inverted U-shaped ‘boomerang’ curve. Thus, as per capita wealth increases, the percentage of women in science first increases and then falls. This is in marked contrast to the (right-side-up) U-shaped curve that is well-established for the participation of women in the labor force as a whole, suggesting that there are factors in the culture of science that result in opposing trends to those observed in the general workforce. This also results in many developing countries having a much higher participation of women in the scientific workforce than is seen in economically developed countries. Contradicting previous reports to the contrary, we find a positive correlation between gender equality in the science workforce and the degree of overall gender equity in the country. Thus, we do not find evidence for the claim that greater gender equity results in the manifestation of innate gender differences in preferences for science. We find differing patterns of retention in science for women in developing and developed countries.