ANN ARBOR—Women represent the greatest potential for increasing the state and country’s scientifically and technologically trained work force, a University of Michigan researcher says.

Getting women involved in the knowledge-driven, entrepreneurial sectors of the economy?in particular high technology?becomes increasingly important as manufacturing industries decline and jobs disappear, says Susan Kaufmann, Center for the Education of Women’s associate director for advocacy.

“Women’s participation in science and technical fields is important for more than attracting and generating jobs,” she said. “It also has a direct impact on innovation.”

Kaufmann’s new report, “Michigan Women and the High-Tech Knowledge Economy,” explores how women are doing in the high-demand, high-wage, high-tech sector. It examines five areas:

? Long-term changes in the Michigan economy.

? Women’s attainment of college degrees in science and technical fields in both the United States and Michigan.

? Women’s work participation in those fields in the country and the state.

? Barriers keeping women’s participation low.

? Innovative strategies for recruiting and retaining women in science and technology.

Kaufmann will discuss these issues at 11:30 a.m. Oct. 30 at the Center for the Education of Women, 330 E. Liberty. Amy Cell, director of talent enhancement at SPARK, an economic development and marketing organization for the greater Ann Arbor region, and CEW Director Carol Hollenshead will join Kaufmann in the panel discussion. This event is open to the public and co-sponsored with SPARK, the U-M Institute for Research on Women and Gender, the Women’s Studies Program, and Women in Science and Engineering.

Efforts are needed to increase the number of residents holding college degrees, particularly in the physical sciences, computer technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, Kaufmann says. Impending baby boomer retirements, with the potential loss of half of the scientists and engineers, make tackling this problem even more urgent, she says.

Two years ago in Michigan, women earned 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees in physical sciences, 22.5 percent in engineering, and just 14.5 percent in computer and information sciences?far behind the national rate of 21 percent in that field, according to Kaufmann. In 2005, only two women in Michigan earned doctorates in computer and information sciences.

For women who work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, pay is higher and more equitable than it is for most other working women, Kaufmann says. Michigan women working full-time, year-round earn 70 cents for every dollar earned by comparably employed men, causing Michigan to be ranked 47th in the country for wage equality, according to the Institute for Women?s Policy Research.

Michigan women working full-time in computer and mathematical sciences, however, earn 83 percent of men’s wages, and women working in architecture and engineering earn 82 percent?well above the norm but still 11 percent below the national wage ratios in those fields, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“Increasing women’s participation in STEM fields is one way to reduce the gender wage gap,? Kaufmann said.

One challenge, she says, is breaking down barriers that girls and women experience in the STEM fields, including low self-confidence, stereotyping, inadequate teaching methods and discrimination.

“Ability is not the problem,” she said. “There is no difference in performance or grade point average between men and women.”

To review Kaufmann’s paper, visit www.cew.umich.edu.

Center for the Education of Women