The Relationship Among Stigma Consciousness, Perfectionism, and Mental Health in Engaging and Retaining STEM Women

As research on retention for working women matures, it is necessary to identify particular factors that influence work satisfaction for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study collected data on 249 women who had worked 11.51 years on average in STEM. To investigate retention, we modeled the relationship between perfectionism, depression, and stigma consciousness on work engagement and intention-to-leave one's job using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. Depression, stigma consciousness, and perceived lack of comparable pay positively predicted greater intent to leave one's job, with a perfectionistic mind-set representing a nonsignificant predictor. In terms of reported work engagement, depression, perfectionistic discrepancy, and stigma consciousness were significant negative predictors, while having perfectionistic high standards positively predicted work engagement. For work engagement, lack of comparable pay was a nonsignificant predictor. Implications and future directions for culturally responsive and intersectional research on the psychological and occupational functioning of STEM women are discussed.