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A new report from the Georgetown Center on Poverty & Inequality suggests that higher education contributes to racial and gender segregation in the labor market, because women and students of color are underrepresented in certain fields of study and concentrated in others.
The report, released Wednesday, notes that women are less likely than men to enroll in computer sciences or engineering programs and more likely to study health care and education. Students of color similarly tend to enroll in specific fields of study. For example, Black students are overrepresented in health care and underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math majors.
Field-of-study segregation is exacerbated by students leaving their majors or dropping out, according to the report. Women studying computer sciences, for example, are more likely to ultimately switch to a different field of study, while women in female-dominated majors are more likely to graduate in their initial field of study compared to their male classmates. Black and Latinx students were also found to be more likely to leave their original field of study compared to their white and Asian counterparts and less likely to graduate within six years, particularly in STEM and business fields.
The report found that these gender and racial segregation patterns in certain majors persist from enrollment to graduation and affect the distribution of women and minorities across careers. It recommends colleges and universities make different majors equally affordable and welcoming by charging uniform tuition across fields of study, ensuring different majors have similar course loads and creating mentorship programs for students underrepresented in their fields of study, among other suggestions.
