Is online advertising exacerbating the gender gap?

There is a chronic shortage of graduates going into science or engineering (STEM) around the world. That shortage is even more acute among women. In the US, only one in seven engineers is female, while in the UK that number drops to a meagre 6% of the STEM workforce.

So what’s driving the gender gap in engineering?

Hiring practices are an unlikely culprit. Indeed, research suggests that women are more likely to be recruited than their male counterparts.

One theory explored in recent research by Anja Lambrecht, Professor of Marketing at London Business School, is that part of the problem may lie in how information about STEM opportunities is disseminated among women in the first place.