Academic Disciplines With Huge Gender Gaps in Doctoral Degree Awards

The National Science Foundation recently released its annual data on doctoral degree recipients in the United States. Data for the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates shows that women earned 46.2 percent of all doctorates awarded by American universities in 2015.

But there are many academic disciplines in which the gender gap in doctoral degrees is substantial. Here are some of the academic fields in 2015 where women earned less than one third of all doctorates awarded:

• Organic chemistry: 32.9%
• Biophysics: 31.5%
• Finance: 31.4%
• Geophysics and seismology: 30.9%
• Atmospheric physics: 30.3%
• Computational biology: 29.0%
• Music theory: 28.7%
• Mathematics and statistics: 28.6%
• Physical education: 27.8%
• Medical physics 26.2%
• Engineering: 23.2%
• Theology: 22.7%
• Astrophysics: 22.2%
• Theoretical chemistry: 19.8%
• Physics: 19.7%
• Computer Science 18.9%
• Acoustics: 18.3%
• Plasma physics: 6.8%

In contrast, there are a number of academic fields where women earned at least three quarters of all doctoral degree awards in 2015. Some examples include:

• Nursing science: 93.8%
• School psychology: 82.7%
• Developmental and child psychology: 82.6%
• Special education: 82.2%
• Social work: 82.1%
• Art history: 79.8%
• Speech-language pathology: 79.3%
• Family and consumer science: 78.7%
• Environmental health: 76.8%
• Urban education: 76.5%