Understanding Women's Underrepresentation in Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics: The Role of Social Coping‪.‬

Enrollment of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors is disproportionately small and declining. This study examines social coping to explain the gender gap. Women undergraduates reported using significantly more social coping than did men. Multiple regression analyses revealed that social coping was a stronger predictor of commitment to major for women than for men. Social coping negatively predicted intent to turn over, or withdraw from, their major for women, but not for men. Unexpectedly, social coping negatively predicted academic course grade for men but not for women. Results suggest that women benefit more from social coping than do men. Implications for counselors and policy are discussed. Whereas women are attending college at unprecedented rates and constitute more than half of university and college populations, they continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields (Planty, Kena, & Hannes, 2009). The decline in STEM enrollments along with retention problems raise concerns about the "shrinking" and "leaking" pipeline, the metaphor most often used to describe declining enrollments and the differential retention of women in STEM fields (e.g., Camp, 2002; Major & Morganson, 2008). As enrollments of women in STEM majors continue to decline, the pipeline "supplying" them to these fields is said to be shrinking (Camp, 2002). College-age women have been reported to be less likely to major in STEM fields and to be retained at a lower rate than are men (Freeman, 2004; Planty et al., 2009). When women complete undergraduate training, they continue to be underrepresented in and are more likely to leave the workforce than are men (Freeman, 2004). In the current article, we focused on understanding and addressing the retention of women in STEM majors at the undergraduate college level.