2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

While percentages of women employed in STEM fields in the United States have generally risen, albeit slowly, over the past several decades, the percentages of women employed in engineering fields specifically has increased at a glacial and stagnating pace. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 3% of practicing engineers were women in the 1970s compared to about 16% in 2023. There is slightly more growth in the percentages of women graduating with engineering degrees, with current numbers hovering around 24% for undergraduate and 26% for graduate students across all areas of engineering; however, this growth has plateaued in the past decade. Women make up fewer than 20% of graduates in Mechanical Engineering in both undergraduate and graduate degrees, a field historically associated with heavy industry, which may contribute to this disparity.

This paper aims to surface and explore aspects of these trends, laying the groundwork for a larger book project that will share the stories of women in the Mechanical Engineering department at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. We will summarize the trends of women in both the engineering workforce and in engineering academia. We will delve into the data for Mechanical Engineering relative to other fields and summarize reasons the percentages of women in Mechanical Engineering programs and occupations have stalled.