Female computer science doctorates: what does the survey of earned doctorates reveal?

Based on the National Center for Education Statistics (2000), in the 1997-1998 academic year 26.7% of earned bachelors' degrees, 29.0% of earned masters' degrees and 16.3% of earned doctorates' degrees in computer science were awarded to women. As these percentages suggest, women are underrepresented at all academic levels in computer science (Camp, 1997). The most severe shortage occurs at the top level---the doctorate in computer science. We know very little about the women who persist to the top level of academic achievement in computer science.This paper examines a subset of data collected through the Survey of Earned Doctorates (SED). The specific focus of this paper is to identify trends that have emerged from the SED with respect to females completing doctorates in computer science between the academic years 1990-1991 and 1999-2000. Although computer science doctorates include doctorates in information science, prior research (Camp, 1997) suggests that the percentage of women completing doctorates in information science as compared to computer science is low. The specific research questions are:1. How does the percentage of women who complete doctorates in computer science compare to those that complete doctorates in other fields?2. How does the length of time in school and the sources of funding differ for females as compared to males who complete doctorates in computer science?3. Where do women go after completing doctorates in computer science and what positions do they acquire? How do these experiences differ from their male peers?