Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) career fields have historically been considered male-dominated domains. STEM careers include biological/environmental, physical, computer and mathematical, social, and engineering sciences. For at least the past two decades, women have earned around 57% of all the awarded STEM bachelor’s degrees and have finally caught up to around 50% of all the awarded STEM doctoral degrees; however, there is a discrepancy between major fields of study (National Science Board, 2019a). Doctorates held by women in engineering (24%), mathematics and computer science (25%), chemistry (39%), and physics (18%) still remain significantly lower than their male colleagues (National Science Board, 2019a). In contrast, women have recently earned half or more of the doctorates in biological sciences (52%), psychology (73%), and sociology (61%) (National Science Board, 2019a). Even though there is still a noticeable gap in STEM degrees between men and women, there is an even larger discrepancy in the way men and women use their degrees.
Roughly half of all individuals who
have earned the highest degree in their respective STEM fields are not actually
employed in a STEM career (National Science Board, 2019b). Furthermore, the percentage of doctorate
holders employed as full-time faculty members have been steadily declining
since the 1970s to less than 70% as of 2017 (National Science Board, 2019b). Although earning about half of the STEM
doctorates, women only make up 43% of full-time junior faculty, 32% of
full-time senior faculty, and 34% of the doctorate holders employed in any STEM
career (National Science Board, 2019b).
This data begs the question, “Where do all of the women PhDs go?”.
How do we lose so many women along
the so-called STEM pipeline? The STEM
pipeline is a metaphorical description of the career trajectory beginning with high
school (sometimes even earlier in education), continuing through undergraduate
education, funneling into graduate education and post-doctoral work, and
finally launching onto the faculty stepladder (Blickenstaff, 2005; Cannady,
Greenwald, & Harris, 2014; Xie & Shauman, 2003). Much research has already shown a leak
in the pipeline, particularly amongst women, but there is not a clear consensus
as to the cause of the leak (Tanenbaum & Upton, 2014). The historical explanation blamed socially
engrained gender bias in the recruitment of women into STEM-based on competency and
interest differences (e.g., men are better at math and science). However, after ramping up efforts in
recruitment, more women than men are entering into STEM, but the men are still
the majority to emerge victoriously into the coveted faculty positions (June,
2015). Interventions aimed at retention
along the education portion of the pipeline only defer the leak to later
stages. Increasing social support
increases retention at earlier stages.
Many women like to know they are not alone in the grueling gauntlet of
STEM career training. One study done at
Ohio institutions showed the likelihood of women to complete their doctoral degree
positively correlated with the number of women in the program (Doctorates,
2017; Flaherty, 2018; Wolfson, 2018). Academic/content
support systems intervene to ensure all students make the necessary
grades. Some institutions even offer
additional support to perpetuate motivation, decrease burnout, and enhance the effectiveness of interpersonal skills when stepping into an intimidating
setting of a traditionally male-dominated career (Stoneman, 2019). These solutions just seem to delay the
inevitable, possibly making the dropout more painful after all of the hard
work.
The competitive environment for
STEM careers can be rigorous and intense.
Consistent with the typical personality traits of the female gender,
many women express dissatisfaction with the cut-throat, political climate of
the STEM field (Mavriplis et al., 2010).
Additionally, graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and junior
faculty oftentimes work in excess of a 40-hour week, especially at
research-heavy institutions (Bowden, 2011).
There is a secret, unwritten STEM cultural rule that guilts its members
into pushing the limits on loyalty of time (Woolston, 2017). Being such a pervasive problem, the Obama
administration attempted to alleviate the long hours by passing amendments to
the Fair Labor Standards Act (Polka & Szalinski, 2016). Some women attempt to opt for part-time
employment. A survey of approximately
227,800 psychologists show women are almost twice as likely as men to take a
part-time position, and women are 7 times more likely than men to cite family
obligations as their reason (Conroy, Christidis, & Lin, 2019). However, the problem is far from solved. Even if not tied to a bench or research lab, STEM
professionals will put in time attending seminars, workshops, and conferences,
completing data analysis, and reading, writing, and reviewing papers and
grants. Additionally, the concept of an
Early Stage Investigator, a special advantage when applying for funding for the
first ten years after earning their doctorate (National Institutes of Health,
n.d.), tends to perpetuate the overworked dilemma through a fellowship and into
their junior faculty position as they try to make efficient use of these
privilege points.
The current trend for women in STEM
careers is to go through “downshifting” to maintain a family/work-life balance
(Ceci, Williams, & Barnett, 2009). While
many factors play into the disappearance, downshifting, or leak of women from
STEM careers, Tanenbaum and Upton eloquently describe the problem as maintaining
the STEM career trajectory “conflicts with the biological clocks of women”
(2014). Given the length of time to
complete the undergraduate and graduate degrees, many women enter into their
postdoctoral or junior faculty stages with established or brand-new families. Motherhood brings about a multitude of new
considerations affecting one’s career: additional housework load, childcare
arrangements, family vacations, healthcare, school involvement, time for
self-care, and less ability to multitask versus work hours, bringing work home,
traveling for conferences or study sections, and partaking in important
professional networking. The list is
essentially endless. It is not too hard
to imagine how a 60-hour (or sometimes more) workweek is not conducive to
work/life balance. Inability to devote
the desired amount of time to career and family will leave women feeling
disloyal to one domain or the other and can result in frustration and guilt
(Blair-Loy, 2003; McCausland, 2019). To
make matters more complicated, STEM career women tend to partner up with STEM career
men, thus potentiating the demands on the STEM career family (Mavriplis et al.,
2010).
Although a part-time STEM position
would seem like an ideal compromise to family/work-life balance, new mothers are
leaving full-time STEM careers at an alarming rate with one study reporting
prevalence as high as 43% (Cech & Blair-Loy, 2019; Else, 2019). The structure of the STEM pipeline is rigid
and unforgiving for women who end up with gaps in full-time STEM employment due
to motherhood or other family commitments.
When returning from this break, oftentimes the woman is viewed as
less committed than her male counterparts and is, therefore, less competitive
for tenure and grant funding (Mavriplis et al., 2010). Part-time employment does not offer the same
financial, tenure, or funding benefits as full-time positions. Eventually, the new mother feels forced to
succumb to a demanding work schedule to attempt to overcome these new barriers
on career advancement and success, amplifying the already strained time for
family obligations. Those women who find
staying in the STEM pipeline is incongruent with their family values are the
ones who leak from the STEM pipeline.
What exactly is the magic solution
for the family versus career conundrum?
How can we truly and fully support women in STEM careers? The National Science Foundation's ADVANCE
program has invested over $270 million dollars targeted towards the recruitment and
retention of women in the STEM field (National Science Foundation, n.d.). Some of the research focuses on reviewing
recruitment, promotion, and tenure policies, addressing work-life balance
satisfaction by looking at institutional climate, feelings of isolation, and
dual-career hiring policies, and providing training and mentorship to enable a
woman to navigate tenure policies and leadership development. However, as wonderful the intent, “Providing
workshops, training, timely feedback on progress, and coaching on the tenure
and promotion processes to all faculty” (National Science Foundation, n.d.)
still sounds like policy makers are missing the point. Lack of understanding the rigorous guidelines
and expectations of a STEM career is not the problem with women leaking out of
STEM. Having to choose between family
and career to meet these expectations is the problem.
Women in STEM need better resources
and real changes to the policies precluding them from advancing in the career
they were told could be within their dreams.
Women need to stop being treated as academic pariahs when choosing a
non-linear track for their professional careers. One anecdote reported by Mavriplis et al.,
(2010) expresses:
It’s difficult for any gender to be
out of science, it’s hard to keep up. You fall out of social networks, keeping
up appearances is important. I took 6 months off for a baby, and it was hard to
come back. People who have families sometimes are seen as “worse” scientists,
i.e. they don’t work hard enough (only 8 hours a day and not 12-14). When I had
my first son, I was working harder than in my entire life trying to combine
work and family, but nevertheless, I was seen as someone who is not doing a good
enough job. It was very difficult. (p.146)
Women tend to have an idea of the
expectations of being a career woman and the expectations of being a
mother. What women do not have is honest
permission to intermingle their professional career goals with their
families.
This
is usually the part where one would state “additional research is
necessary.” However, it is not
necessary. Additional research has been
done. It is now necessary to make
changes. Hewlett et al. (2008)
highlights new initiatives from 43 global STEM companies “that realign
corporate cultures and redesign career paths to better fit the needs” of the
women desiring to balance life and work in STEM careers. Chaudhuri (2011) suggests addressing
tenure-clock policies by pausing to accommodate childbirth and early childhood
years. Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose
(2010) makes recommendations for each stage of the STEM pipeline including
increasing mentorship for female faculty members. Mavriplis et al. (2010) suggest making
several system-level changes such as non-discriminatory re-entry process for
women returning to the STEM careers after gaps due to childrearing, reducing
requirement loads for tenure requiring mothers to juggle research, teaching,
and community outreach with family obligations, and more explicit support of
family life from “people in positions of power ” (p. 147). Cech and Blair-Loy (2019) would like to see
more states offering paid leave to parents for childcare, better and more
prestigious part-time positions available at STEM institutions, and STEM
leaders to explicitly challenge cultural bias against STEM mothers. Goulden, Frasch, & Mason (2009) delineate
several suggested changes for both the institutional and federal policy levels
including time-based accommodations towards funding, tenure, leave, and
re-entry, better childcare provisions, and enhanced financial benefits.
Mental
health professionals (MHPs) can and need to help support women in STEM. MHPs should learn and familiarize themselves
with the STEM career culture to develop empathy for the challenges women in
STEM face. MHPs should be familiar with
strategies available to STEM women walking the tightrope of work-family life
balance (see Mavriplis et al., 2010 for suggestions on addressing the women’s
needs, p.149). MHPs should encourage and
empower women to advocate for themselves.
Lastly, MHPs also need to advocate on behalf of STEM women to the
policy makers and field leaders to change the way they view family fitting into
a STEM career. The bottom line is these
changes are needed. Changing the policy
is only the first step. These policy
changes need to be explicitly supported by the STEM leaders, so much so that
they are publicized as options and resources more often than the women are made
to feel inferior and less competitive, either implicitly or explicitly, for
wanting both family and a STEM career.
By Jonette M. Peretik
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