Women make up majority of applicants in service programs

A sense of adventure, commitment to service and willingness to sacrifice corporate salaries are all characteristics that might come to mind when imagining the typical applicant to public-interest jobs. But data show that there is another trait the majority of these applicants share: a pair of X chromosomes.

Princeton Project 55, which connects job-seeking seniors and recent graduates with nonprofit organizations, reported in January that three-quarters of its 146 applicants for the 2010–11 academic year were women. A similar gender makeup characterizes Project 55’s fellows for the 2009–10 academic year, of whom 76 percent are women.

Stephanie Mirkin, Project 55’s program manager, said that applicant demographics have been consistent since the program’s inception in 1989. She added that the program’s demographics align with nationwide statistics. Women make up two-thirds of staff in the nonprofit sector, according to a 2008 study by the White House Project.

A similar application gap exists within the application pools of Princeton’s other public-service programs. Princeton in Africa (PiAf) program director Aili Petersen said in an e-mail that PiAf has received more female than male applicants.

The gender split is also salient at Teach for America (TFA), a perennial top recruiter among seniors, which had 173 applicants from the Class of 2009. TFA spokeswoman Kaitlin Gastrock said that 68 percent of all TFA corps members — and of Princeton alumni in the corps — are women. She added that TFA’s gender divide is smaller than that among teachers nationally, 74 percent of whom are women.

Still, Gastrock said that TFA hopes to recruit more male teachers.

“We’re putting [forth] a concerted effort to put more men into the corps,” she said, explaining that “the male community is disproportionately affected by the achievement gap, so we’re looking for more men to serve as role models.”

Gastrock said that men may be less likely to apply for teaching positions in part because of “historical stereotypes [about] pay, prestige and gender roles.”

Mirkin explained that, despite the gender gap in its application pool, Project 55’s advertising campaigns and fellowship programs are geared equally toward men and women.

Wilson School professor Nannerl Keohane, chair of the University’s recently formed Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership, said that while she had not seen any information on the gender breakdown of applicants to organizations such as Project 55 or TFA, such information could be useful to the committee.

“This is something our steering committee will want to keep in mind as we consider the ambitions of Princeton women and men and how they might differ,” she explained in an e-mail. “So it’s good to know about this.”

The Pace Center does not keep track of its participants’ genders unless they require housing, Pace Center Director Kiki Jamieson said in an e-mail.