Is This STEM?

No calculus? No organic chem? Then No.

This is an otherwise-excellent essay by Rob Henderson. One stat caught my eye, though:

. More than half of all STEM degrees now go to women, and their presence in the tech industry has grown—from 31 percent in 2019 to 35 percent in 2023.

This smelled fishy to me. Are they redefining “STEM” to get more women into it? There’s an obvious motivation. Since “STEM” is all the rage, and countless state and federal programs aim to get more STEM graduates, naturally everyone would like to say, “Hey, I’m STEM, too!” It’s like saying you’re virtuous.

You can be highly skilled, have gone through years of training, and great at your job, but still not be STEM. Making everything that sounds even vaguely technical “STEM” is handing out participation trophies.

I looked into the PEW report that Rob is quoting from. Here’s some excerpts from the PDF for that report. (see page 25)

(It’s tough to get this formatted right since Substack doesn’t have tables. A fixed-pitch font is the only way.)

Women% Total workers

Computer workers 25 4,966,771
Mathematical workers 47 305,242
Engineers and architects 15 3,034,215
Life scientists 48 340,153
Physical scientists 40 690,606
Healthcare practitioners
and technicians 74 9,796,854

What jumps out at you? The “Healthcare practitioners and technicians.” That’s more than all the rest put together.

So what’s included in that? I’m not going to format all of it like I did for the summary, but here’s a screenshot:

Here is a simple test that you can use to determine, “Is this occupation STEM?” It’s:

Do you have to take calculus to get into it? How about organic chemistry? If the answer to both is “no” then it’s not STEM.

Does a “Medical and health services manager” have to take either of those? Their total is more than Physical scientists, Mathematical workers, or Life scientists. How about dental hygienists?

Summary

Even this US Department of Labor report only projects 11.3 million women in STEM jobs in 2030. That’s much less than this PEW report shows as current numbers.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. The global race for economic success depends on training more STEM workers. We’re not going to win that race by creating more people who know how to bill Aetna or Blue Cross for your MRI.