Minority Status and the Pursuit of Professional Careers: Women in Science and Engineering

Abstract

The integration of a visible minority group into the American occupational structure; specifically, the sexual integration of science and engineering is investigated by comparing selected social characteristics of career with noncareer women and men with similar training in these fields. Deviation of science, and especially engineering, from the ideal-typical model of rational professions is indicated in the finding of significant “selective patterning” of careers and differential career success by sex of college graduate, which is evident when they first enter the labor market and becomes more pronounced during the course of their careers. It is suggested that discrepancies between occupational values of women employees and their perceptions of their actual work situation may indicate potential problems in their employment. Finally, possible adaptations to mitigate the effect of “deviant” sex status in the professional context are identified for two age groups of women scientists and engineers in terms of patterns in their temporal ordering of the events of college graduation, employment, marriage, and childbearing.