In what is billed as a “first of its kind” study of why the engineering workforce is shrinking, a team of University of Wisconsin academics released results of a study of more than 5,300 women practitioners that shows that nearly 40% who earned engineering degrees quit the profession or never entered the field, and that inadequate training and development and even hostility from peers and managers workplace are key factors.
Fouad
Nadya Fouad and Romila Singh, organizational behavior researchers and professors at the university’s Milwaukee campus who have led the multi-year study funded by the National Science Foundation, presented the first findings earlier this month at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.