November 8 marks National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Day—an opportunity to celebrate and inspire students to pursue STEM education and careers. In recent decades, STEM professionals have created countless groundbreaking innovations, and employment in STEM careers has grown exponentially. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment in STEM jobs is projected to continue to grow at more than twice the rate of overall employment over the next 10 years.
Despite this, women account for only 26.6 percent of the STEM workforce, according to IWPR’s State Policy Action Lab (State PAL). Moreover, IWPR’s analysis of the 2023 American Community Survey finds that women in the STEM workforce make just 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man in this sector. Researchers attribute the sizable and persistent gender gap in STEM jobs to social patterns, including stereotypes that discourage women from entering fields long dominated by men and unconscious biases that benefit men in hiring and funding decisions. Yet another contributing factor to the gender disparities in the STEM workforce could be the system used to classify jobs as STEM or not.
US government agencies, including the Census Bureau and the BLS, use standards set by the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Policy Committee, which distinguishes between STEM and “science and engineering-related” domains. A closer look at the 2018 Census STEM, STEM-related, and non-STEM occupations code list exposes a significant gap between women’s representation in STEM and STEM-related fields. While women account for roughly a quarter of the STEM workforce, they make up nearly three-quarters of workers in STEM-related jobs.
Notably, many jobs in health care—a sector dominated by women—are classified as STEM-related. For example, women comprise 87.9 percent of the registered nurse workforce, which includes specialists such as midwives and nurse practitioners. Nursing and nursing science contribute to advancements in evidence-based health care, require advanced training in subjects like anatomy and microbiology, and involve work comparable to that of other STEM-designated fields such as data science and engineering. Categorizing nursing occupations as STEM-related instead of as STEM undermines the depth and demands of the nursing profession.
Furthermore, the lack of a full STEM designation prevents aspiring nurses (and other health care professionals) from accessing STEM-specific educational programs and funding offered by various agencies. In turn, this exclusion disproportionately hinders women from pursuing opportunities for academic and professional advancement, which could also lead to pay growth. Thus, the STEM-related designation may exacerbate existing gender inequities within the nursing profession and other “STEM-related” occupations. Despite occupying the majority of the workforce, women nurses earn 88.2 cents for every dollar earned by male nurses annually at the median, according to IWPR’s analysis of the 2023 American Community Survey. Looking across all STEM-related occupations, the gender earnings gap widens to 72.2 cents on the dollar.
According to the SOC Policy Committee, in addition to the work performed, “skills, education, or training” are factors that can be used to guide classification decisions, especially in STEM. The committee also acknowledges the difficulty of determining how to categorize certain jobs, particularly in health care. In 2024, the committee began the process of revising the standard occupational classification, but it won’t be published until 2028, ten years after the last update.
In the meantime, advocates in the nursing profession, including the American Nurses Association, are working diligently to get government agencies and leading nonprofits like the National Science Foundation to classify nursing as a STEM occupation, which they argue will strengthen and diversify the workforce. The Nursing is STEM Coalition contends that “categorizing nursing as a STEM field helps rectify a long-standing perception that women are not pursuing rigorous math and science fields”—an issue that is reinforced by the continued classification of nursing as merely STEM-related, confining a workforce dominated by women to a lesser label.
While STEM research, education, and job sectors continue to grow at a rapid pace, the uneven and gendered classification of highly technical female-dominated occupations as STEM-related instead of STEM threatens to undervalue the role of women in STEM.
This National STEM Day, we honor the many important contributions of women to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including nurses, whose jobs should be classified as STEM, not STEM-related.
For more on women’s representation in STEM jobs, STEM-related jobs, and the combined STEM and STEM-related workforce, including race and ethnicity breakdowns at the state level, see our newly published data on the State PAL website here.
This blog was prepared by Rea Bardhi, with support from Dr. Mrinmoyee Chatterjee, Emily Maistrellis, and Dr. Jennifer Turner.
