Research

A Legacy of Research

In keeping with one of its founding objectives to “serve as a center of information on women in engineering,” SWE has worked for decades to gather data on women’s experiences, barriers, and opportunities in engineering.

Explore SWE's Legacy Below

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In 1963, the Society published Profile of a Woman Engineer, reporting that the average female engineer was 36-37 years old; if married, had three children; and earned a median annual salary of $9,000 to $10,000.

Profile Chart
Using data from a 1961 survey of SWE members, the first Profile of a Woman Engineer in 1963 explored members' ages, salaries, education, employment, and marital status.
Profile Brown Chart
SWE President Pat Brown displays a chart with SWE members’ engineering disciplines and job responsibilities, taken from the 1963 Profile of a Woman Engineer.
Profile Cover
SWE surveyed its members numerous times in the 1970s and early 1980s to create updated editions of the Profile of a Woman Engineer. These later versions included questions about members’ specializations, the nature of their work, their level of experience, and supervisory responsibilities.

SWE and the American Association of Engineering Societies published the groundbreaking National Survey on Women and Men Engineers in 1993, a comparative study of the members of 22 engineering societies.

Survey Salary
The 1993 survey found gender disparities in salaries, advancement opportunities, and job retention, among other issues.
Survey Summary
An executive summary of the 1993 survey, published in the September/October 1993 issue of SWE Magazine, reports that women engineers often began their careers at or near parity with men, but their salaries and managerial opportunities lagged later in their careers.
USWE Family Issues
Results of the SWE family issues committee’s survey of 159 members, published in the January 1992 issue of U.S. Woman Engineer, found that childcare was a significant professional obstacle for members with children.

SWE’s research focus in the 2000s was to better understand the barriers keeping women out of engineering and the interventions helping to retain them in the profession.

Lit Review
First published in 2002, the annual literature review in SWE Magazine summarizes the prior year’s peer-reviewed social science research about women’s status in engineering.
Lit Review Retrospective
SWE Magazine's 20-year retrospective of the Society’s annual literature review in 2022 examined what social science researchers learned in the past two decades about women’s underrepresentation in engineering, identified questions yet to be answered, and considered how that knowledge impacts policy.
Study LeakyPipeline
The Society’s Corporate Partnership Council commissioned a retention survey in 2005 to better understand what influences women engineers to stay or leave the field, and the results were presented during a 2007 congressional briefing led by SWE.

The Society created a research division in 2016 to identify and explore supportive structures that encourage women to pursue and remain in the profession, alternative educational pathways, and methods for increasing diversity and inclusion in engineering education and the workforce.

Community College Research
The Society’s 2017 study on the success of women and underrepresented groups in engineering and computer science at two-year community colleges suggests that alternate educational pathways can diversify the profession.
India Infographic
In 2017, SWE reported that women in India experienced high levels of gender bias, while men experienced high levels of bias related to their religion and geographic region.
COVID Survey
The Society’s research in the summer of 2020 quantified the unequal burden women engineers faced during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, and SWE surveyed its membership again in 2021 to determine how they fared a year later.

In 2017 SWE Magazine debuted its annual research issue, now called the State of Women in Engineering, featuring the Society’s annual literature review, analysis of SWE’s original research, and discussion of its implications in industry and public policy.

SOWIE Title IX
SWE members leave copies of the SWE Magazine State of Women in Engineering issue with their U.S. representatives and senators during the Society’s annual Congressional Visits Day.
WE StateOfWomen
SWE introduced its State of Women in Engineering plenary at the WE16 Annual Conference to share the findings of the Society’s growing body of research and analysis on the underrepresentation of women in engineering.
SOWIE STEM Equity
In addition to research and analysis, the State of Women in Engineering issue also includes thoughtful articles exploring the intersection of gender, research, and policy.