Assessment of gender equality in South Korean STEM: factors affecting STEM graduate students’ perception of gender equality

Abstract

This thesis aims to understand the factors underlying the assessment of gender equality among graduate students of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Utilizing the recent survey data collected by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI) and the Korea Federation of Women’s Science and Technology Associations (KOFWST), this study investigates the effect of graduate students’ research environment on their assessment of gender equality in the South Korean STEM fields, focusing on the variations by respondents’ sex and laboratory sex composition. Deploying the difference of mean test, correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression, this thesis confirms (1) the masculine culture of the South Korean STEM fields, (2) the discrepancies by sex in the perceptions of the graduate research environment and gender equality, and (3) the significance of the non-discrimination experience, interaction with peer colleagues, and financial support for gender equality perception. These results call for policy designs that are developed based on the considerations of the perception of the current status and complexity of gender equality in STEM fields.