Doctoral Women in Career Breaks - Mind the Gap
Catherine Mavriplis
Wednesday, 24 September 2008 20:50 UTC
As part of a US National Science Foundation project, we are a group seeking to research the plight of women in career breaks (voluntary or not) and to provide resources for these highly trained scientists to re-enter the research and in particular the academic arena.
At this time we are looking for a handful of women to interview in order to gather data and trends that will serve for a larger survey later this year. Please visit our website where you can find out more and email us (wlp at gwu.edu) if you would like to contribute your experiences.
Thanks.
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Replies
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This is a good project. I believe that a study or studies along these lines have been done previously in the UK, but can’t immediately recall the details. I’ll try to find them, as the results might be relevant for your survey. Good luck, I hope you get lots of input from scientists.
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Thanks Maxine – that would be helpful!
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There has been quiet a bit done with respect to women in sceince in the UK over the past few years.
I would recommend haveing a look at tthe Athena SWAN Charter which is a scheme that recognises and celebrates good employment practice for women working in science, engineering and technology (SET) in higher education and research.
Also the UK resource centre for women in SET, UKRC has a number of good resources and they may be able to help you identify some key people to talk to.
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Here is the abstract of a sad article in the latest edition of EMBO Reports (9, 951-953; 2008).
Not a welcoming place. A new study sheds light on the situation of women scientists and engineers in the private sector
Jean Thilmany
It is becoming increasingly undeniable that more women than men leave academic research. A string of publications have detailed the problem, looked at the reasons and highlighted the economic consequences of the high attrition rate among female scientists. Both the US National Science Foundation (NSF; Arlington, VA, USA) and the European Commission (EC; Brussels, Belgium) have expressed concerns that the disappearance of highly skilled women from academic research causes a considerable drag on economic performance and inhibits economic growth (EC, 2006; NSF, 2004, 2006). Most of these studies have focused only on publicly-funded academic research; however, it seems that the private sector is facing the same problem, according to a recent study on the attitudes and perceptions of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) companies (Hewlett et al, 2008).
The rest of the article is here
(Hewlett et al is called ‘The Athena Factor’ which I imagine is the same as or related to the link you provide, Branwen. There are references to previous NSF studies in the EMBO R article, and to European Commission figures.) -
Thank you Branwen and Maxine. I am following up on those suggestions.
I have just come back from a Iowa State Univ. ADVANCE conference on faculty flexibility where the topics of flexibility in work/life balance and tenure and promotion requirements and procedures were discussed.
In particular we heard from Mary Ann Mason at UC Berkeley on ‘Do Babies Matter?’ who talked about her recently published book: Mothers on the Fast Track , Joan Herbers from Ohio State University describing efforts to develop part-time tenure-track options, the now national Higher Education Research Consortium which helps dual career couples in their faculty searches, and Linda Siebert Rapoport from the University of Illinois at Chicago, who has bridged the corporate and the academic worlds in developing flexible workplace programs that advance business success.
Unfortunately, I was not able to attend the second day which featured Sherbin, oneof the authors of the Athena Factor.While our discussions unearthed and in some cases rehashed some of the problems in women’s involvement in academic SET, it was notable that we still did not directly address some very basic tenets of the academic workplace: e.g. the definition of success in academia, clarification of tenure and promotion criteria, etc. On the one hand I believe this is due to the (probably accurate) belief that the system will not change anytime soon, but also that we are so socialized not only to this academic culture but to the whole societal culture that it is difficult for us to perceive and much less question what we assume to be a basic operating principle. So for instance, there is hardly any discussion of how women (or men) who have taken a career break could re-enter the academy. These events seem to come from more one-time ‘lucky’ or ‘savvy’ women who have found a way to make it work. Still, as noted in the articles Maxine quoted above, this makes little economic sense: to train so many women and then lose them in droves.
I have not received many replies to the original request here: indeed it seems difficult to find women who are currently not employed in the Sci and Eng workforce. We have heard from several women who have taken (often short) breaks (often carefully planned or within the umbrellla of well-defined maternity leave policies – but these don’t exist everywhere!) and are back at work or who have left Sci and Eng and vowing never to return.
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So a kind of “all or none” effect? Either people are so committed that they will stick come hell or high water, or they lose heart? It is really tough, I have seen friends (usually in the biological sciences) go through this.
I am running out of suggestions a bit, but I wonder if Female Science Professor blog (blog of a professor in the physical sciences) or Women in Science blog will have readers who can provide some experiences?
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