Women Made Up Over a Quarter of All Business R&D Employees in 2020

According to the 2020 Business Enterprise Research and Development Survey, 27% of U.S. business R&D employees were women. For all manufacturing subsectors and nonmanufacturing sectors with at least 100,000 R&D workers, the female share of R&D employment ranged from 14% to 47%. Women represented about half of all R&D employees in just two detailed industry groups that meet this employment threshold: pharmaceuticals and medicines (NAICS 3254, 51%) and scientific research and development services (NAICS 5417, 50%). Machinery (NAICS 333) and transportation equipment manufacturing (NAICS 336) had the two lowest shares of female R&D employees in this group of industries. Women made up about a quarter of the R&D employees in the information sector (NAICS 51) and in the professional, scientific, and technical services other than R&D sector (NAICS 54 less 5417).

Recent data show similar variation by field for degrees awarded to women in 2020 (NSF 23-315, figure 7-3). Women were awarded over 50% of the bachelor’s (64%), master’s (62%), and doctoral (53%) life sciences degrees. In contrast, women were underrepresented for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in engineering (24%, 27%, and 25%, respectively), mathematical and computer sciences (26%, 35%, and 26%, respectively), and physical and earth sciences (43%, 38%, and 34%, respectively).

Suggested Citation: Anderson G, Shackelford B; National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). 2023. Women Made Up Over a Quarter of All Business R&D Employees in 2020. NSF 23-328. Alexandria, VA: National Science Foundation. Available at https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf23328/.