Improve Girls' and Women's Opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math

In the last 50 years, more than half of America's sustained economic growth was created by the five percent of the workforce who create, manage, and maintain the processes and products of innovation: engineers, scientists, and advanced-degree technologists. America's science, technology, and math workforce is aging while jobs requiring specialized training are growing at five times the rate of other occupations. The supply of new workers in these fields is struggling to keep up with demand, and women remain severely underrepresented. Women make up half of the population and are a largely untapped resource that could prove essential in maintaining the technological competitiveness of the United States. This paper offers suggestions on how this country can begin to close the gender divide in science, technology, engineering, and math. (Contains 50 endnotes.)