Abstract
The minority status of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions makes their successful career development difficult. Due to gender-specific challenges, career dissatisfaction contributes to women dropping out of STEM careers. Therefore, women’s subjective career success (SCS) is important to persist and progress in their STEM careers. This study analyzed the influence of different types of work motivation and the perceived career autonomy on SCS of women. Specifically, 318 women working in STEM professions in Germany completed a quantitative online questionnaire. Using an ordinary least squares regression for variables predicting SCS measured as career satisfaction, we found that an intrinsic work motivation positively affects women’s SCS. The perception of high career autonomy was related positively, and the perception of low career autonomy was related negatively to SCS. Unexpectedly, the findings also revealed the positive influence of income on women’s SCS. The findings show that intrinsic work motivation and high perceived autonomy are promoting factors for SCSs, which could also contribute to their retention in STEM professions.
Highlights
The under-representation of women in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions has changed little in recent years (Buse, Bilimoria & Perelli, 2013)
This implies that women, who are self-determined in their work motivation, have higher perceptions of SCS, i.e. career satisfaction
As women tend to have a more negative technology-related self-concept than men (Vincent & Janneck, 2012), it is possible that this conflicts with the need for competence which is considered as an important factor to achieve self-determination
Summary
The under-representation of women in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professions has changed little in recent years (Buse, Bilimoria & Perelli, 2013). This is caused by fewer women opting for a STEM study, but as well by a drop out during the further course of their careers (Fouad, Fitzpatrick & Liu, 2016). While this is a global phenomenon, the under-representation of women in STEM in Germany is striking. In 2017 the proportion of women employees on the German labor market in architecture was only 28.3 %, in mechanical engineering 18.1 % and in computer science 16.3 % (Institut für Arbeitsmarktforschung, 2018)
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