Biomedical Science Ph.D. Career Interest Patterns by Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Figure 1
Distinct career interest profiles among Ph.D. biomedical scientists by social identity.
(A) Bar graph showing mean response for sample of 1500 American biomedical scientists who received Ph.Ds. between 2007–2012 when asked to rate their level of interest in each of the following career paths at Ph.D. entry (black), Ph.D. completion (grey), on a 5-point scale (where 1 represents “no interest” and 5 represents “strong interest”): faculty at a research-intensive university; faculty at a teaching intensive university; a research career outside of academia (e.g. industry, pharmaceutical, biotech, government, start-up, etc.); and a non-research career (consulting, policy, science writing, patent law, business, etc.). (B) Pie chart showing the social identities of the respondents. Males from well-represented racial/ethnic backgrounds (WRM) are shown in blue and represent 25% of the sample; males from underrepresented minority backgrounds (URMM) are shown in red and represent 5.8% of the sample; females from well well-represented racial backgrounds (WRF) are shown in green and represent 53.9% of the sample; females from URM backgrounds (URMF) are shown in purple and represent 12.6% of the sample; and respondents declining to state racial/ethnic background or with an alternative gender identification are shown in grey and represent 2.7% of the sample. (C) Bar chart showing mean interest in the four career paths at Ph.D. entry, Ph.D. completion across social identity. Group means were compared at each time point and statistical significance was determined using Bonferroni corrected ANOVA. (D) Plot showing the average, individual level paired-difference between career pathway interest at Ph.D. completion versus Ph.D. entry across social identity groups. Statistical significance was determined using Bonferroni corrected ANOVA.