Early career retention among undergraduate degree holders in science and technology: A five-year follow-up of a national Canadian sample.

• Main Author: Worth Gavin, Darlene A.
• Other Authors: Flynn, R.
• Format: Others
• Published: University of Ottawa (Canada) 2009
• Subjects: Women's Studies.
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10393/9973; http://dx.doi.org/10.20381/ruor-8060

Both government and private industry are concerned as to why young Canadians, particularly young women, hesitate to choose careers in the growing labour markets of science and technology (S&T). Aggregate data suggest that women not only enter into S&T-related endeavours in disproportionately lower numbers than men, but also exit from S&T careers at higher rates than do their male counterparts. This investigation's primary objective was to establish comparative rates of "loss" (non-retention) of highly trained young women and young men from the fields of S&T in Canada. Its secondary objective was to conduct a preliminary investigation into some potential social and psychological correlates of retention (and non-retention) in S&T careers. A national sample ($N=3158$) of Natural Science, Engineering, Life Science/Health Professions, and Mathematics/Computer Science (NELM) bachelor's degree holders participated. Statistics Canada surveyed 1212 women and 1946 men in NELM fields from the university graduating classes of 1986, two- and five-years after graduation (i.e., in 1988 and 1991). A set of four complementary hypotheses were tested in order to investigate the fundamental postulation that early career retention among undergraduate degree holders in S&T would be proportionately lower for young women than for young men. Findings at both the two- and five-year follow-ups showed highly similar retention-rates for women and men. Women had only slightly high non-retention rates than men ($\sim$5%) among Natural Science and Mathematics graduates; rates were approximately equal among Engineering and Life Science graduates. In direct and sequential logistic regression analyses conducted to predict the probability of retention (vs. non-retention) in S&T at post-graduation year-5, the main predictor variable of interest--sex--consistently failed to reliably predict retention (vs. non-retention) in S&T, even after controlling for the effects of the following antecedent variables: level of mother's and father's education; respondents' age; marital status at 2-years; number of dependent children at 2-years; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for originally having enrolled in an N, E, L, or M program of study, further education at 2-years; income at 2-years; job satisfaction at 2-years; and, salary satisfaction at 2-years. Findings had two main policy implications, first with regard to the relative insignificance of sex in the prediction of persistence in S&T, and second with regard to the importance of further education and training in predicting this outcome. These are discussed in light of the inter-related issues of lessening the shortage of highly qualified S&T personnel in Canada and of eliminating the underrepresentation of women in Canada's S&T community.