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Internships May Help Address Male-Female Pay Gap for STEM Grads


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Researchers from Stanford University found that women in STEM fields are still not only underrepresented, but making less money than their male peers. The data, which came from nearly 7,200 respondents, offers an explanation for the gender pay gap in STEM fields. "Women are indoctrinated from birth to discount their own opinions of themselves in favor of what others think about them," says Adina Sterling, of Stanford Graduate School of Business's organizational behavior department.

Sterling and her colleagues find that a confidence gap aligns with a gender pay gap. They describe their work in "The Confidence Gap Predicts the Gender Pay Gap Among STEM Graduates," published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The gender pay gap begins when women and men with earned degrees enter the workforce," the researchers say. Because of this, women are more likely to earn a salary more closely aligned with their male counterparts if they previously had an internship with their employer. 

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