Degree Awards to Women: An Update.

An update, as of 1977, of four National Center for Education Statistics reports concerned with changing patterns in degree awards to women is presented. Separate chapters are devoted to bachelor's, master's, doctoral, and first-professional degrees. Each chapter consists of an overview, an examination by field of study of the percentage representation of women among degree recipients in 1977 as compared with 1971, and an examination of the relative popularity of different fields of study for men and for women, and how this has changed between 1971 and 1977. An overall finding of the report is that most of the trends identified in the four small reports continue to be evident in the 1977 data. Among findings are that at all four degree levels women continued to increase their percentage representation among degree recipients; that in 1977 women accounted for 46.2 percent of the bachelor's degrees, 47.1 percent of the master's degrees, 24.3 percent of the doctoral degrees, and 18.7 percent of the first-professional degrees; and that at both the bachelor's and master's levels women tended to show the greatest increases in those fields in which they have traditionally had small representation. (Author/PHR)