Why Do Women Leave?

In the Freakonomics blog yesterday was a post about a paper by Jennifer Hunt about why women are leaving the science and engineering fields. Her conclusion is that women have either family issues or are dissatisfied with promotional opportunities. I am not going to disagree with her point since I am neither in the field or a woman, but I am a civil engineer and I would like to point out something that I have noticed at an engineering school.

There are not that many women in the field to begin with. In Reinforced Concrete Design there were about 5 women in a class of 80, and in Senior Design (The Lake Champlain Bridge one) there is 6 women to about 70 students. I do not want to speculate as to why there are not as many women in the engineering field, and I will admit that my observations might be skewed because of my major. However this is has been an issue for a long time; people for years have been complaining that my school, "Has no chicks!" Since the inception of the business school in the early 90s the school has reversed that trend, and people keep telling me that the incoming freshman class is 50/50. I am skeptical though that we are obtaining more female engineers which is unfortunate.