Female doctoral recipients exceed males in 2002

According to the annual "Survey of Earned Doctorates" study, female doctorate recipients outnumbered male recipients for the first time in 2002, making up 51 percent of Ph.D.s given to United States citizens.

However, the total number of doctorates awarded at U.S. universities declined.

The results of the survey, conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, showed that the total change can be attributed to a considerable drop in male Ph.D. recipients.

Last year, 12,823 doctorates were awarded to American men, a decrease of nearly 15 percent since 1997.

The number of women receiving Ph.D.s last year was only slightly higher, at about 13,000, but this number has remained relatively constant for several years. A decade ago, women earned 3,000 fewer doctorates than men.

American universities awarded 39,955 total doctorates last year, down 2 percent from 2001. The steady decline in doctoral degrees has reached its lowest point in a decade, dropping 6 percent in the last five years.

"We see this as a result of the drop in graduate enrollment at the end of the 1990s, when the job market was so hot for new bachelor recipients," said Peter Syverson, vice president of research and information services at the Council of Graduate Schools.

"When looking at these numbers you need to look back five, six, seven years, because that's when the current Ph.D.s started their programs."

According to University spokeswoman Lori Doyle, the numbers of doctorates awarded from Penn's graduate schools are consistent with the national trends.

There has been a steady rise in the percentage of women receiving doctoral degrees from Penn over the past decade, from 38.1 percent in 1990 to 48.4 percent in 2002.

"The trends are different from field to field," Syverson said. "Engineering and business are dominated by men, and these are fields where you don't need a Ph.D. for a career."

He noted that women are dominant in many of the social sciences and increasingly in the life sciences. "If you want to have a research or management career in education, psychology, sociology... you really need the doctorate degree."

At Penn, women constitute the majority of doctorate recipients in Nursing (96 percent), Social Work (80 percent), Education (74 percent), Communications (68 percent) and Fine Arts (51.1 percent).

Women are underrepresented in the Wharton (30.4 percent) and Engineering (21.6 percent) doctoral programs.

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