By Carole Joffe (Ms. Washington Correspondent)
Here’s the good news: Over the past 30 years, women’s entrance into graduate programs in the sciences and engineering has significantly increased. This is particularly true in the life sciences, where women now receive more than 50 percent of all Ph.Ds.
But here’s the bad news: Women Ph.Ds in these fields are less likely than men to enter academic research positions, where most cutting-edge scientific discovery takes place. And women who attain such positions are more likely to drop out before a tenure decision is made.
The stalled careers of these women scientists have implications beyond the costs to the individuals involved. As the authors of a major new report on attrition among scientists put it, “The loss of these women…means the long-term dependability of a highly trained U.S. workforce and global preeminence in the sciences may be in question.”
The report, Staying Competitive: Patching America’s Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences, is a collaborative effort between the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., and scholars at the Center on Health, Economic and Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley (Marc Goulden, Karie Frasch and Mary Ann Mason). It draws on several large surveys of more than 8,000 doctoral students and 2,300 postdoctoral students, both men and women. The report examines young scientists’ decision-making at several crucial phases of their career: doctoral training, postdoctoral training and as junior faculty.
Not surprisingly, perceived unfriendliness to a faculty member’s family concerns within a research-intensive university—and especially the difficulty reconciling childrearing with a successful scientific career—was shown to be a major factor in the decision of female doctoral students to “leak out” of the United States’ scientific pipeline. Young male scientists, the report shows, also have concerns about balancing work and family, but women are more likely to lower their career goals or drop out altogether.
The reality of women’s reproductive lives is often on a collision course with the standard timeline for an academic career in science. An aspiring woman scientist will typically graduate college at 22, receive her Ph.D at 27, complete her postdoctoral training at about 30 and then enter a tenure-track position at a research university. There, as the authors put it, “the time pressures are unrelenting,” with demands to apply for research grants, conduct research, publish results, supervise a lab and teach. If all goes well, this hypothetical woman will not get tenure until her mid-to-late 30s (the authors note that the average age of tenure for women in sciences has climbed to 39).
Now assume that this woman wants to have children. If she waits until tenure to have them, she may face problems, as her prime reproductive years are past. And women who have children while pursuing tenure are less likely than either their male colleagues with children or women colleagues without them to be fully or partially supported by all-important federal grants.
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