A new international study published by researchers at Northwestern University and University of California-Berkeley found that even in nations with high gender equity, gender-based stereotypes continue to dominate science and technology fields, where scientists are still expected to be male.

For the last half-century, the percentage of women with careers in science has increased unevenly across countries. This allowed the researchers to perform a country-by-country examination of the relationship between gender stereotypes and the presence of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. The question the researchers asked was simple: if subjects were to think of a scientist, are they more likely to put a man or a woman inside the lab coat?

The result was the largest study of this type, encompassing approximately 350,000 participants from across 66 nations. On average, each national sample was 60 percent female and 27 years old. Half had a college degree or higher, and nearly 80 percent had at least some college education. These last two factors are important because they suggest that over half of the sample population had at least some exposure to the representation of women among science majors in higher education.

Explicit gender-science stereotypes were examined via survey and something called a gender-science Implicit Association Test. This type of association test asks subjects to sort words into categories using rapid keystrokes. In the case of the gender-science test, the strength of subjects' gendered associations with science concepts would be shown in the way they sorted gender and science related words. To facilitate comparison across these two stereotype measures, the raw data was standardized across counties.

The survey results were analyzed in light of a variety of national statistics. UNESCO’s data on the percentage of women in tertiary science education and employed as researchers was used as a measure of women’s representation in science. Additionally, 25 national attributes were considered as covariates to evaluate alternate explanations for the relationship between women in science and gender-science stereotypes. These covariates included broad and domain-specific indicators of gender equality, gender differences in science achievement, and prevalence of scientists in general, as well as cultural dimensions such as region and sample demographics like percentage of men in the sample, percentage of the sample with a bachelor's degree, and average age of the sample.

Using these measures, the researchers found that both implicit and explicit measures suggested a strong association between men and science in all 66 nations included in the study. These implicit stereotypes persisted even in countries where women make up approximately half of the STEM workforce, though explicit biases are weaker in these countries, which suggests that simply educating or employing women in science-related fields is not adequate to break down these long-held biases.

The study found robust relationships between a country’s involvement of women in science and the national stereotypic view of the gender of scientists. These findings were almost twice as strong for female participants. That result is consistent with literature on this topic, which indicates that women, as the marginalized group, are more susceptible to gendered stereotypes.

The researchers suggest that changes to the broader cultural environment are likely to have strong effects on science-gender stereotypes, as cultural stereotypes will change only as more women enter these fields and reach positions of prominence. The findings of this study come accompanied by an interactive table of gender-science stereotypes across countries worldwide.

Though this study has limitations, it is generally consistent with a body of literature on the existence of gender-based biases in STEM fields. One large limitation of this study is that it’s correlational, which means that there’s no way to prove whether the stereotypes are caused by a lack of gender diversity or whether women are less able to access STEM fields due to stereotype threat. Additionally, use of a self-selected Internet survey population is somewhat limiting, as countries may have varying rates of Internet use, and self-selection is a biased form of sampling.

Ultimately, this finding adds to the body of literature suggesting that the presence of some strong female role models in STEM fields may not be adequate to break down both implicit and explicit gender biases in science. Though explicit biases are reduced by the presence of more women in the science workforce, implicit biases are harder to change.

The authors of this study suggest that repeated counter-stereotype encounters with women in science are the best way to change cultural norms. They consider their findings as a call to action for affirmative action for populations affected by this sort of stereotype threat, as this type of program has been shown to help marginalized groups enter some fields—and start providing counters to the stereotype.

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2015. DOI: 10.1037/edu0000005 (About DOIs).

Note: The editor of this story participated in the study.