Since 1970 at the master’s level and 1998 at the doctoral level, women have earned the majority of advanced degrees in the humanities. In comparison to higher education as a whole, the humanities field granted a larger share of advanced degrees to women throughout the 1966–2015 period.
Findings and Trends - The proportion of advanced humanities degrees awarded to women peaked in the first decade of the 21st century and remained fairly stable into the next decade (Indicator II-13a and Indicator II-13b). As of 2015, women earned 61% of all master’s and professional-practice degrees in the humanities and 54% of the doctoral degrees in the field.
- Although master’s degrees in the humanities were awarded somewhat more often to men than women in the mid-1960s, by 1970 gender parity had been achieved. Women almost immediately went on to become the majority of humanities master’s degree recipients. While the share of humanities master’s degrees awarded to women was initially quite a bit larger than the share for all fields combined, by 2015 the difference had shrunk to 2.5 percentage points.
- In 2015, the fields of behavioral and social science, education, and health and medical sciences all awarded a larger percentage of master’s degrees to women than the humanities. Business, engineering, law, and the natural sciences awarded considerably smaller shares.
- In the mid-1960s, the humanities, like all other academic fields, awarded only a small minority of doctoral degrees to women. Though they were better represented in the humanities than in every field but education, women still received only 19% of humanities doctorates in 1966. Throughout the last third of the 20th century, however, this percentage increased steadily, and by the late 1990s the majority of all new humanities doctoral degree recipients were women. Thereafter, a slightly larger share of doctoral degrees in the field went to women than to men.
- As at the master’s degree level, the humanities traditionally awarded more doctorates to women than did higher education as a whole, but the gap narrowed over time. In 2015, the difference was less than five percentage points.
- From 1987 to 2015, seven of the 11 humanities disciplines examined here saw an increase in the share of women earning master’s and professional-practice degrees (Indicator II-13c). In philosophy, the share declined one percentage point, while languages and literatures other than English and the academic study of the arts saw declines of approximately four percentage points. Women earned the same share of master’s degrees in English in 2015 as in 1987.
- From 1987 to 2015, most of the disciplines examined here experienced an increase of 4–16 percentage points in the share of doctorate degrees earned by women (Indicator II-13d; the increase in the share of cultural, ethnic, and gender studies was quite a bit greater, but the much smaller size of this discipline [as measured by degree completions], means that comparisons of percentage change should be made with caution). The exceptions were in classical studies and linguistics, which had declines of six and two percentage points. Languages and literatures other than English awarded the same share to women in 2015 as in 1987.[1]
- As of 2015, four of the 11 humanities disciplines examined here were awarding less than half of their doctoral degrees to women: classical studies, history, philosophy, and religion.
II-13a: Percentage of Master’s and Professional-Practice Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Academic Fields, 1966–2015 |  | * For years 1966–1986, the National Science Foundation academic field category of “Arts and Music” is the basis for the count of “Fine and Performing Arts” degrees depicted here. This category includes the academic study of the arts (e.g., art history and film studies), which encompasses disciplines considered by the Humanities Indicators to be part of the humanities field. For years 1987–2015, the categorization of degrees by the finer-grained Classification of Instructional Programs makes possible the removal of such degrees from the count for “Fine and Performing Arts” and their inclusion among humanities degrees. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the break in the trend line for this field and others.
Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System (HEGIS), and Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS). HEGIS and IPEDS data were accessed via the National Science Foundation’s online data system, WebCASPAR. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org). |
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II-13b: Percentage of Doctoral Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Academic Fields, 1966–2015 |  | * For years 1966–1986, the National Science Foundation academic field category of “Arts and Music” is the basis for the count of “Fine and Performing Arts” degrees depicted here. This category includes the academic study of the arts (e.g., art history and film studies), which encompasses disciplines considered by the Humanities Indicators to be part of the humanities field. For years 1987–2015, the categorization of degrees by the finer-grained Classification of Instructional Programs makes possible the removal of such degrees from the count for “Fine and Performing Arts” and their inclusion among humanities degrees. Please see the Note on the Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and Shares for further explanation of the break in the trend line for this field and others.
Source: Office of Education/U.S. Department of Education, Survey of Earned Degrees, Higher Education General Information System (HEGIS), and Integrated Postsecondary Data System (IPEDS). HEGIS and IPEDS data were accessed via the National Science Foundation’s online data system, WebCASPAR. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators (www.humanitiesindicators.org). |
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II-13c: Percentage of Master’s and Professional-Practice Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Humanities Disciplines, 1987–2015 |  | Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data were accessed via the National Science Foundation’s online data system, WebCASPAR. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators ( www.humanitiesindicators.org). |
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II-13d: Percentage of Doctoral Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Humanities Disciplines, 1987–2015 |  | Source: U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Integrated Postsecondary Data System. Data were accessed via the National Science Foundation’s online data system, WebCASPAR. Data analyzed and presented by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Humanities Indicators ( www.humanitiesindicators.org). |
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Endnotes[1] The small number of students receiving doctoral degrees in any particular discipline means that relatively modest year-to-year changes in the number of degree completions by women translate into dramatic increases and decreases in share. As a result, for certain years during the 1987–2015 period some disciplines saw a share of degrees going to women that was substantially higher or lower than the most recent [2015] share. “Spiky” data of this kind make the identification of trends difficult. Please Note| Data Used to Calculate Humanities Degree Counts and SharesThe bulk of the data that form the basis of this indicator is drawn from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Higher Education General Information System (HEGIS; 1966–1986) and its successor, the Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS; 1987–present), through which institutions of higher learning report on the numbers and characteristics of students completing degree programs (as well as a variety of other topics; for more on IPEDS, see http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/). The HEGIS/IPEDS degree-completion data have been made accessible to decision-makers, researchers, and the general public by the National Science Foundation (NSF) via its online data analysis tool WebCASPAR.
Degree-completion data for years 1948 through 1965 were derived from the Survey of Earned Degrees, which was first administered by the Office of Education (the Department of Education’s predecessor) and later by NCES. The Survey of Earned Degrees data were culled from printed publications because the information is not included in WebCASPAR. For the trend lines extending back to 1948, data are presented only for a limited portfolio of humanities disciplines because the academic discipline classification systems employed by NCES in its reporting on the Survey of Earned Degrees and HEGIS are not fine-grained enough to capture the full complement of disciplines considered by the Humanities Indicators (HI) to be within the scope of the humanities. (For an inventory of the disciplines and activities treated as part of the humanities by the HI, see the Statement on the Scope of the “Humanities” for Purposes of the Humanities Indicators.)
For 1987 and later years (1995 and later for data on the race/ethnicity of degree recipients), WebCASPAR categorizes earned degrees according to the more detailed Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP). The CIP was developed by NCES in 1980 as a way of accounting for the tremendous variety of degree programs offered by American institutions of higher learning and has been revised several times since its introduction, most recently in 2009 (this version is referred to as “CIP 2010”). The CIP has also been adopted by Statistics Canada as its standard disciplinary classification system. An analysis of completions using CIP permits the HI to include earned degrees in a substantially greater number of the disciplines considered by the HI to be part of the humanities field.
For example, with CIP-coded data, academic disciplines such as comparative religion can be separated from vocational programs such as theology and thus can be included in the humanities degree tally. Likewise, CIP allows communications programs that fall within the HI’s definition of the humanities, such as media studies and rhetoric, to be distinguished from professional aspects of the field, such as journalism and political communication. Additionally, when using CIP-coded data, the HI can include degrees in such disciplines as archeology, women’s studies, gay and lesbian studies, and Holocaust studies in its counts of humanities degrees from 1987 onward. CIP-coded data are always the basis of humanities degree counts for indicators that report degree data only post-1986 data.
For an inventory of the CIP disciplinary categories included by the HI under the field heading of “humanities” (as well as those categories of the NSF-developed taxonomy of academic disciplines that are the basis of certain tabulations of humanities degrees for years 1966–1986, see the Degree Program Code Catalog. This catalog also indicates which degree programs the HI includes within specific humanities disciplines (e.g., for the purposes of the HI, English degrees include those classified under CIP as being in “English Language and Literature,” “American Literature,” and “Creative Writing,” among others).
In the case of several of the degree-related indicators, the humanities are compared to certain other fields, such as the sciences and engineering. The nature of these fields is specified in the Statement on the Scope of the “Humanities” for Purposes of the Humanities Indicators. These broad fields do not encompass all postsecondary programs. Therefore, where fields are being compared in terms of their respective shares of all degrees, the percentages will not add up to 100%.
The bachelor’s degree counts presented do not include “second majors” because NCES began collecting data about these degrees only in 2001. The HI deals separately with the issue of second majors under the topic “Humanities Bachelor's Degrees as a Second Major.”
Data on the number of students completing minors are not collected as part of IPEDS, but such information was compiled for selected humanities disciplines as part of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences–sponsored Humanities Departmental Survey (HDS; see the 2012–2013 HDS final report, page 16, table 9a). Please Note| Definition of Advanced DegreesAccording to the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) Glossary, master’s degrees are “awards that require the successful completion of a program of study of at least the full-time equivalent of 1 academic year, but not more than 2 academic years of work beyond the bachelor’s degree.”
The NCES, which collects the degree completion data presented as part of the Humanities Indicators, defines first professional degrees as those awards that require completion of a program that meets all the following criteria: (1) completion of the academic requirements to begin practice in a profession; (2) at least two years of college work prior to entering the program; and (3) a total of at least six academic years of college work to complete the degree program, including prior required college work plus the length of the professional program itself. According to NCES, the following ten fields award first professional degrees:
Chiropractic (D.C. or D.C.M.) Dentistry (D.D.S. or D.M.D.) Law (LL.B. or J.D.) Medicine (M.D.) Optometry (O.D.) Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.) Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) Podiatry (D.P.M., D.P., or Pod.D.) Theology (M.Div., M.H.L., B.D., or Ordination) Veterinary Medicine (D.V.M. or V.M.D.)
Although some fields (e.g., library science, hospital administration, and social work) require specialized degrees for employment at the professional level, NCES does not count degrees in these fields as first professional degrees; instead, they are treated as master’s degrees.
Whereas all doctorates had previously been included in a single category, for academic years 2008–2009 and 2009–2010 NCES gave schools the option of employing a new classification system that distinguishes among three types of doctoral degrees:
Research/Scholarship—A Ph.D. or other doctoral degree that requires advanced work beyond the master’s level, including the preparation and defense of a dissertation based on original research, or the planning and execution of an original project demonstrating scholarly achievement; Professional Practice—A doctoral degree conferred upon completion of a program providing the knowledge and skills for the recognition, credentialing, or licensing required for professional practice; or Other—A doctoral degree that does not meet the definition of the research/scholarship or professional practice doctorate.
Schools could classify certain degrees that had historically been treated as first professional degrees as either “Professional Practice” doctoral degrees (as in the case of medical degrees, for example) or master’s degrees (as in the case of advanced, nondoctoral degrees in theology).
To ensure comparability with previous years, for 2007–2008 and 2008–2009 the Humanities Indicators counted as doctorates all of those degrees classified by postsecondary institutions as “Doctorate Degree,” “Doctorate Degree—Research/Scholarship,” or “Doctorate Degree—Other.” The HI treated as “master’s and professional-practice degrees” those degrees classified by schools as “Doctorate Degree—Professional Practice,” “First Professional Degree,” or “Master’s Degree.”
For academic year 2010–2011, NCES eliminated the “first professional degree” category. The agency now requires schools to use the three-category system described above to classify all advanced degrees other than master’s degrees. Related Indicators| For additional demographic information on advanced degree recipients, see Indicator II-13b, Percentage of Doctoral Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Academic Fields, 1967–2015, and the indicators under “Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities.”
For comparable information on trends at the undergraduate level, see “Demographics of Associate’s Degree Recipients in the Humanities” and “Gender Distribution of Bachelor's Degrees in the Humanities.”
Other indicators pertaining to graduate education in the humanities can be found under the topics “Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Share of All Advanced Degrees Conferred in the Humanities,” “Disciplinary Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Humanities Degree Completions: An International Comparison,” “Paying for Doctoral Studies in the Humanities,” “Years to Attainment of a Humanities Doctorate,” and “Attrition in Humanities Doctorate Programs.” Related Indicators| For additional demographic information on advanced degree recipients, see Indicator II-13a: Percentage of Master’s and Professional-Practice Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Academic Fields, 1966–2015, and the indicators under “Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities.”
For comparable information on trends at the undergraduate level, see “Demographics of Associate’s Degree Recipients in the Humanities” and “Gender Distribution of Bachelor's Degrees in the Humanities.”
Other indicators pertaining to graduate education in the humanities can be found under the topics “Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Share of All Advanced Degrees Conferred in the Humanities,” “Disciplinary Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Humanities Degree Completions: An International Comparison,” “Paying for Doctoral Studies in the Humanities,” “Years to Attainment of a Humanities Doctorate,” and “Attrition in Humanities Doctorate Programs.” Related Indicators| For additional demographic information on advanced degree recipients, see Indicator II-13d: Percentage of Doctoral Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Humanities Disciplines, 1987–2015, and the indicators under “Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities.”
For comparable information on trends at the undergraduate level, see “Demographics of Associate’s Degree Recipients in the Humanities” and “Gender Distribution of Bachelor's Degrees in the Humanities.”
Other indicators pertaining to graduate education in the humanities can be found under the topics “Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Share of All Advanced Degrees Conferred in the Humanities,” “Disciplinary Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Humanities Degree Completions: An International Comparison,” “Paying for Doctoral Studies in the Humanities,” “Years to Attainment of a Humanities Doctorate,” and “Attrition in Humanities Doctorate Programs.” Related Indicators| For additional demographic information on advanced degree recipients, see Indicator II-13c: Percentage of Master’s and Professional-Practice Degrees Awarded to Women, Selected Humanities Disciplines, 1987–2015, and the indicators under “Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities.”
For comparable information on trends at the undergraduate level, see “Demographics of Associate’s Degree Recipients in the Humanities” and “Gender Distribution of Bachelor's Degrees in the Humanities.”
Other indicators pertaining to graduate education in the humanities can be found under the topics "Advanced Degrees in the Humanities," "Share of All Advanced Degrees Conferred in the Humanities," “Disciplinary Distribution of Advanced Degrees in the Humanities,” “Humanities Degree Completions: An International Comparison,” “Paying for Doctoral Studies in the Humanities,” “Years to Attainment of a Humanities Doctorate,” and “Attrition in Humanities Doctorate Programs.”
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