I'm a boomer woman engineer and benefitted both from the push for science education in K-12 after Sputnik as well as all the new opportunities opening up for women in higher education.  My mom was a nurse and my dad was a chemist.  From my point of view, going into a male dominated profession was definitely the way to go.  I had a strong "social good" ethic and decided I could both be an engineer (good pay) and contribute to society (work on air pollution).  That's what I've done and I'm very happy with how things have turned out.  However, both my daughters took a look at the office enviros of their parents (both engineers) and were repulsed (I'm being honest here).  One studied micro-biology and has decided to teach kids (and will probably move into education policy later on) the other studied politics and is headed in the NGO direction.  Money isn't that important to them.  They see the coorporate-sector world of their father and the government-sector world of their mom and want something more connected on a personal level.  Perhaps being raised in Berkeley is a factor.