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The story behind AVMA's push to become more inclusive for women is an interesting one. You can see the results in the profession lookup under "Veterinarians" on

The story behind AVMA's push to become more inclusive for women is an interesting one. You can see the results in the profession lookup under "Veterinarians" on the page. The tech community could certainly learn lessons from that campaign, both what to do and what not to do in order to try to balance out gender disparity in tech.

khawkins 9y ago
Went to a graduation at NC State, one of the top veterinarian schools, and one of the takeaways was that we're not going to to see gender parity any time soon. This profession will be dominated by women over the next few decades.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  The story here is that it was 100% male a generation ago.
russdill 9y ago
I think the Veterinarian one shows that some of these numbers are seriously lagging. It'd be interesting to see age plots with these. While the industry reached parity in 2010, college admission reached parity in about 1987: https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/PublishingImages/100215g1.gif https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/PublishingImages/100215g...
- nv-vn 9y ago
  That's true of the overall workforce and I don't see it as evidence of lag. I think the effect is caused by a disproportionate number of women who go to college but either don't ever enter the workforce or stop work after a few years. The cause for this is obviously pregnancy/raising children. So even if it was 50% in 1987, maybe 10% of women who studied to become veterinarians chose not to pursue a permanent career because they wanted to have kids either right after or a few years after finishing college.
  - russdill 9y ago
    I think it's just that it's not oncommon for vets to work well into their 60s and even 70s. I found this site: https://datausa.io/profile/soc/291131/ https://datausa.io/profile/soc/291131/ That has a chart for age by gender. The crossover point is about 55, which would be for the "generation" that graduated 30 years ago, or around 1987. I'm pretty doubtful of veterinary graduates not entering the workforce or stopping after a few years. I'm certainly not personally aware of any, but I don't have the numbers. Their debt is absolutely crushing. It's currently pushing 180k, and since it's post graduate, the interest rate is in the 5-7% range.
- heartbreak 9y ago
  Like another commenter said, it lags for the same reason lawyers lag: vets have a long shelf life. I have a parent who is a working veterinarian and is well past retirement age.

khawkins 9y ago

Went to a graduation at NC State, one of the top veterinarian schools, and one of the takeaways was that we're not going to to see gender parity any time soon. This profession will be dominated by women over the next few decades.

heartbreak 9y ago
The story here is that it was 100% male a generation ago.

russdill 9y ago

I think the Veterinarian one shows that some of these numbers are seriously lagging. It'd be interesting to see age plots with these. While the industry reached parity in 2010, college admission reached parity in about 1987: https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/PublishingImages/100215g1.gif https://www.avma.org/News/JAVMANews/PublishingImages/100215g...

nv-vn 9y ago
That's true of the overall workforce and I don't see it as evidence of lag. I think the effect is caused by a disproportionate number of women who go to college but either don't ever enter the workforce or stop work after a few years. The cause for this is obviously pregnancy/raising children. So even if it was 50% in 1987, maybe 10% of women who studied to become veterinarians chose not to pursue a permanent career because they wanted to have kids either right after or a few years after finishing college.
- russdill 9y ago
  I think it's just that it's not oncommon for vets to work well into their 60s and even 70s. I found this site: https://datausa.io/profile/soc/291131/ https://datausa.io/profile/soc/291131/ That has a chart for age by gender. The crossover point is about 55, which would be for the "generation" that graduated 30 years ago, or around 1987. I'm pretty doubtful of veterinary graduates not entering the workforce or stopping after a few years. I'm certainly not personally aware of any, but I don't have the numbers. Their debt is absolutely crushing. It's currently pushing 180k, and since it's post graduate, the interest rate is in the 5-7% range.
heartbreak 9y ago
Like another commenter said, it lags for the same reason lawyers lag: vets have a long shelf life. I have a parent who is a working veterinarian and is well past retirement age.