Gender Gap in Science

The Global Survey of Scientists

The Global Survey of Scientists aimed to measure the gender gap in science around the world by investigating issues relating to the education and upbringing of young women; their career choices; workplace conditions and family obligations; and rates of participation and retention of women in the sciences, computing, and mathematics by comparing the experiences of women and men. The survey was conducted in seven languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish). To prepare the questionnaire, three regional meetings, in Colombia, South Africa, and Taiwan, were held to review the draft questionnaire with a special focus on: collecting feedback on regional implications of topics, providing unambiguous wording, gathering input to ensure that the survey was appropriate for all regions and for disciplines, and developing an outline for the distribution plan.

The Global Survey of Scientists was launched on 1 May 2018 and closed on 31 December 2018. There were more than 32,000 respondents to the first question, and analyses were performed on nearly 25,000 responses, including from 2,698 chemists, that contained sufficient data. Responses came from 159 countries, and women and men are almost equally represented in the final dataset. Data were analyzed using three basic statistical approaches: bivariate, multivariate, and qualitative analyses. Data were collected using “snowball sampling,” a technique in which existing respondents recruit others from among their colleagues, and partners in the project encouraged respondents in the partnering organizations, professional societies, and other relevant groups. Snowball sampling does not provide a statistically representative set of results, but they indicate trends among the respondents that were generally consistent across disciplines, geographical regions, and level of development.

Figure 1. Respondents indicating they personally encountered sexual harassment at school or work, by discipline.

Figure 2. Percentages of respondents comparing their career progression to their colleagues who completed their final degrees at the same time by discipline.

Figure 3. Percentages of respondents indicating their career influenced their decisions about children, marriage, or a similar long-term partnership by discipline.

Figure 4. Percentages of respondents indicating their career or rate of promotion slowed significantly because they becamne a parent by discipline.

In the final report of the Gender Gap project, results of the Global Survey of Scientists were reported in a graphical form that illuminated the differences between women’s and men’s experiences across disciplines, geographical regions, level of regional economic development, education, and employment sector.

It was found that systematic differences between the experiences of men and women still exist, across all regions, all disciplines, and all development levels; chemistry was not an exception.

The final report contains a great deal of information across the sciences. For chemistry in particular, some examples of the major findings are discussed here.

More than six times more women than men in chemistry reported having personally encountered harassment at work or school (Figure 1). This trend was essentially the same across disciplines, geographic regions, and levels of economic development.

Compared with men, women in chemistry tended to report more frequently that the progression of their careers was significantly slower than that of their peers (Figure 2). Women in chemistry also tended to report in greater numbers than men that their careers were more strongly affected by their decisions regarding children, marriage or similar long-term partnership, and that their careers were slowed significantly when they became parents (Figures 3 and 4)

There were also significant findings that spanned disciplines, regions and levels of economic development. For example, women in the survey were less likely than men to report respectful treatment by coworkers. Also, women were more likely than men to report that they took interruptions in their studies, and that the interruption had a negative impact on their professional credibility. More female respondents than male respondents expressed that they felt discriminated against in the assessment or evaluation of their achievements because of their gender. Fewer women reported being treated fairly in their work environment, and women more frequently reported lower pay than that of their colleagues. Finally, the gender gap in science does not disappear with increasing levels of regional economic development, as defined by the Human Development Index, HDI. In some instances, a higher level of development was found to be correlated with more negative experiences by women in graduate program quality, and relationship with their graduate advisors.

Figure 5. Trends in authorship by women in six major chemistry journals.

Overall, these analyses provide compelling evidence that women and men do not have the same experiences in science, and that women’s experiences are less positive than men’s. There are gender differences in every area that was examined. In addition to findings from the survey regarding harassment and rates of career progression, the survey found: (See Table 1):

1. Women are less likely than men to say that everyone is treated fairly in the educational system and in employment.

2. Women report less positive relationships with their doctoral advisors, lower doctoral program quality, and more interruptions in doctoral studies than men.

3. Women are less likely to report respectful treatment by co-workers than men.

Study on Publication Patterns

The analyses of publication patterns for women in mathematics, astrophysics, computer science and quantitative biology were based on data from three bibliographic sources managed by scientific organizations, namely: 1) The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System for research in astronomy and astrophysics, zbMATH for pure and applied mathematics; and arXiv for physics and mathematics and computer science or quantitative biology. However, in chemistry, the researchers used data on the representation of women in a selection of chemistry publications. Data from Crossref was used to investigate the proportion of women in 6 prestigious chemistry journals that were suggested by IUPAC volunteers: Chemical Reviews, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Chemistry-A European Journal, Nature Chemistry, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, and The Chemical Record. The proportions of women authorship in these journals has been increasing steadily over the past 20 – 50 years (below 5% in 1970 up to values in the vicinity of 20% in the 2010s), a pattern that is not always repeated in other scientific disciplines (Figure 5).

There are overall improvements in academic career development for women as measured by increases in numbers of publications authored by women, although on a different pace depending on discipline. In particular, theoretical fields and sub-fields show the slowest improvement in most of the metrics applied, which leads to interesting questions such as the role of collaboration for the achievement of equal opportunities. However, the proportion of women authoring papers in top journals has remained static in mathematics and theoretical physics, while it increased in astronomy and chemistry. A pattern of fewer women authors in theoretical disciplines and sub-disciplines was found while a larger presence of women was found in applied fields and with multiple authors. The rise of women representation in chemistry over the past five decades is perhaps the most noteworthy among the analyzed STEM disciplines. Even though the promising results were found, due to data limitation across the globe, much remains unexplained about how women chemical scientists on a global level.

For instructors and parents

1. Avoid gender stereotyping and unconscious gender bias in interactions with female students and children.

2. Avoid books and social media that reinforce the gender gap in science. Develop gender awareness in the classroom and encourage girls in their learning of STEM subjects.

3. Encourage relevant single-sex activities to raise girls’ self-confidence and possibilities for expressing themselves.

For local organizations

1. Promote a respectful, collegial working atmosphere in your organization.

2. Define best practices to prevent, report and address sexual harassment and discrimination in professional spaces.

3. Address the impact of parenthood on the careers of women. Encourage provision of a research-only year after maternity leave or parental leave.

4. Ensure transparency of statistics on salaries, course loadings, bonuses, hiring and promotion, observing progress or difficulties experienced by female academics. Encourage policies to help reduce gendered salary disparities.

5. Welcome families and provide child friendly environments. Provide improved support systems for parents.

6. Address gender equality in all institutional policies. Identify a person or a group in charge of gender equality inside the organization, looking at the gender balance in all kind of activities.

7. In all outreach and educational programs, include the aim of reducing the gender gap.

For scientific unions

1. Work collectively to change culture and norms to reduce the various aspects of the gender gap.

2. Define and advertise best practices to prevent, report and address sexual harassment and discrimination in professional spaces.

3. Recommend and disseminate in the scientific community proper accounting of child bearing/caring responsibilities (18 months per child recommended) when evaluating candidates in hiring and promotion processes.

4. Actively promote the visibility of female scientists, in particular at conferences.

5. Encourage the diversification of scientific awards, actively encouraging the nomination of women.

6. Encourage the presence of women in editorial boards in your discipline and publish reports on the proportion of papers published by women.

7. Welcome families in scientific activities.

8. Create a committee for women and/or gender equality, with an assigned budget line.

9. Actively promote gender balance at every level of your organization, including its leadership, its committees and also institutional events.

10. In all outreach and educational programs and products, raise the awareness about the gender gap and include specific actions/events that aim at reducing the gender gap.