Senior researchers and the director of science and society research at Pew Research Center recently conducted a new analysis of government data.
Their findings show that Black students earned 9% of master's degrees, 6% of research doctorates, and 6% of professional doctorates in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.
Black workers comprise just 5% of those in engineering and architecture and 6% each in life and physical science jobs, smaller than their share of all employed U.S. adults (11%).
In contrast, White workers are overrepresented in STEM jobs (67%) compared with their 63% share of workers across all occupations. They make up 71% of engineers and 62% of computer workers.
Asian Americans are 13% compared with their share of all employed (6%).
Black workers make up 9% of the STEM workforce.
The Pew researchers said that even with dramatic growth in the number of STEM graduates from U.S. colleges and universities since 2010, there is little indication that diversity in related jobs will shift substantially in the near term.
During the 2017-2018 academic year, the most recent data available, Pew Center researchers found Black students earned 7% of STEM bachelor's degrees, smaller than their share of all bachelor's degrees (10%).
An updated analysis by the Bureau of Labor Statistics since the coronavirus outbreak began projects strong growth for many STEM occupations in the United States, particularly epidemiologists, medical scientists, biochemists and biophysicists, and biological technicians others.
The Pew researchers also found that the number of women has been roughly stable.
In engineering, women's shares have only slightly increased from 12% in 1990 to 15% today. And the percentage of women in computer occupations went down over this period. In 1990, 32% of workers in computer occupations were women; today, women make up 25%, unchanged since 2016.
Women earn a large share of degrees in health-related and life science fields, far fewer in other STEM areas.
Women earned most STEM bachelor's degrees in 2018 (53%), but that was smaller than their share of all bachelor's degrees (58%).
Women made up a large majority of bachelor's degree recipients in health-related fields (85%) and a 61% majority of college graduates in the life sciences as of 2018.
Women are underrepresented among graduates in math, physical science, engineering, and computer science, but women earned a minority of bachelor's degrees in other STEM fields.
§ For the 2017-2018 academic year, women earned 22% of all bachelor's degrees in engineering and 19% of all bachelor's degrees in computer science. Women earned fewer than three-in-ten of the advanced degrees in these fields.
§ Across all racial and ethnic groups, women in STEM earn less than their male counterparts.
§ The median earnings of women in STEM occupations are about 74% of men's median earnings in STEM.
§ STEM workers typically earn more than those in other jobs, with the highest median pay for Asian men and the lowest for Black and Hispanic women.
§ STEM workers enjoy higher median earnings than those in other non-STEM occupations. In 2019, median earnings for full-time, year-round workers ages 25 and older in a STEM job were about $77,400. The comparable median for workers in other non-STEM occupations was $46,900.
§ The median earnings of Black STEM workers are 78% of the median earnings of White STEM workers. A typical Hispanic STEM worker makes 83% of what a typical White STEM worker makes. The typical Asian worker in STEM earns $99,100, 127% that of a comparable White worker ($78,000).
