A chart at Scientific American sums up data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics showing that while women are receiving a higher percentage of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics degrees, they are being awarded fewer doctoral degrees than men are. The chart indicates that women receive nearly 50 percent of chemistry bachelor's degrees and less than 40 percent of the doctoral degrees. The drop off is more severe in math and statistics: Women receive approximately 43 percent of bachelor's degrees in those fields, but less than 30 percent of the PhDs awarded.
Scientific American notes, though, that more women are becoming science professors. "It seems like many of the indicators are pointing toward parity, but at different scales and different rates," Adam Maltese, a science education professor at Indiana University Bloomington, says. "That's not going to happen overnight, not in the next decade, and maybe not for the next 20 or 25 years."