Seventy percent of women engineers leave the profession within a decade. We are losing the voices, mentors, and leaders who could transform the field.

The Moment

∗Sarah remembers the exact moment she decided to leave engineering as she handed in her company badge after 12 years in the aerospace industry. That moment came months earlier, in a conference room where she’d just presented a breakthrough solution to a manufacturing problem that had plagued her team for a year.

Her manager’s response? "Great work; can you take notes while we discuss implementation?"

Despite 91.8% of women engineers reporting that they are satisfied with their careers, only 30% remain in the field 20 years after earning their degrees. Seven out of 10 women like Sarah—talented, educated, passionate about their work—eventually walk away. Anyone concerned about the growth of the engineering profession should be focused on this phenomenon.

The Paradox

We are told the future looks bright. ∗Women are earning engineering degrees in record numbers; more than doubling from 16,017 in 2011 to 33,310 in 2021. For example, women now make up more than half of all graduates in biomedical engineering programs.

So, we should be celebrating, right? Except we keep losing them. Forty percent of women who earn engineering degrees either never enter the profession or leave soon after starting. Within five years, barely half still work in engineering roles. A decade later, 70% are gone. This is twice the rate of their male peers.

And here is the painful twist: many were not failing. They were succeeding, just not being allowed to show it.

What We Are Not Talking About

For years, the story has been the same. Women leave for family reasons, or they lack confidence, or they are not "technical enough."

But the data says otherwise. Studies find no significant differences in interests, confidence, or abilities between women who leave and those who stay.

When researchers asked women engineers why they left (analyzing nearly 2000 statements from a University of Wisconsin study),¹ the answers were not about personal shortcomings. They were about the workplace. Pay gaps and rigid schedules. Being underused or overlooked. Hitting walls when they tried to advance.

Thirty percent specifically cite organizational climate, the daily experience of being in a culture that signals they do not belong.

As researcher Nadya A. Fouad put it: "It’s not women who need to change; it’s the work environment that does."

The problem isn’t who you hire. It’s what happens after they arrive.

Where They are Missing

This exodus in the profession creates predictable gaps in leadership everywhere engineering expertise matters.

In academia, only 20% of tenured engineering faculty are women. Women make up 28.1% of assistant professors but only 15.1% of full professors. Something systematic happens between those ranks. Only 75 women serve as engineering deans out of 360 schools; and that number dropped from 84 in 2021.

In industry, women run 11% of Fortune 500 companies. But the real bottleneck is earlier; women are severely underrepresented in CFO, COO, and profit and loss roles that lead to CEO positions. Only six companies in the S&P 100 have reached 50% women in leadership.

In government, women make up 28.5% of Congress, but only 4% of members have engineering backgrounds. When infrastructure bills get written or AI regulations get debated, the people who understand these systems technically are barely in the room.

A Tuesday That Tells the Story

Sarah’s story is not dramatic, it is repetitive. Here is what one of her "composite Tuesdays" looks like:

9:00 A.M.: Staff meeting. Her manager asks her male colleague three technical questions. Sarah is asked to "send the slides."

2:00 P.M.: Performance review. She is praised for "collaboration." Her peers earn "technical leadership."

4:30 P.M.: A text thread about after-work drinks goes out. Sarah is not included. That’s where stretch assignments get discussed.

The Cost of Losing Her

When Sarah left, we lost more than a mid-career engineer. We lost the breakthrough she would have made in year 15 serving in the industry. The mentoring she would have offered. The perspective she would have brought to design and policy.

We also lose money. An estimated $4.6 billion annually in wasted educational investment.

And think of Lisa Su, MIT-trained electrical engineer turned CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Under her leadership, AMD’s stock rose nearly thirty-fold.

How many individuals with Lisa Su’s potential have we already lost?

When the Environment Works

Remember that 91.8% job satisfaction rate? When the environment is right, women engineers thrive. The problem isn’t engineering. It’s the climate surrounding it.

Some organizations are changing that story. The growth from a dozen women engineering deans in 2002 to more than 70 in 2024 didn’t happen by chance. Companies like AMD prove that inclusive leadership does not just look good, it drives performance.

The Critical Questions

Sarah did not leave engineering because she stopped loving it. She left because her environment stopped valuing her.

"I still love engineering," she said. "I just couldn’t stay in a place that loved engineering more than it valued engineers like me."

We have proven we can bring women into the profession. The share of engineering degrees earned by women grew from 17% to 23% in a decade. But when only 30% are still there twenty years later, we have built a revolving door.

Women aren’t the problem. They’re excelling in classrooms, on project teams, and when given the chance, at the very top.

Right now, somewhere, a woman engineer is presenting a breakthrough that could change your business. Will she be recognized? Will she get the stretch role that leads to leadership?

If the answer becomes "yes" often enough, we will not just keep her, but we will also build better products, stronger teams, and a future powered by all of our talent.

∗Sarah is a composite character representing experiences documented in research with thousands of women engineers.

References

U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey on data on STEM occupations.

Society of Women Engineers (SWE) reports on U.S. Degree Attainment research series (2025) [swe.org/research/2025/us-degree-attainment] and Retention in the Engineering Workforce (2023) [swe.org/research/2025/retention].

Gender Diversity in the C-Suite: Women’s representation in the 2024 S&P 100 [www.russellreynolds.com/en/insights/articles/gender-diversity-in-the-c-suite-women-representation-in-the-2024-sp-100].

¹Fouad, N. A., Singh, R., Fitzpatrick, M. E., & Liu, J. P. (2012). "Stemming the Tide: Why Women Leave Engineering." University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.)