Survey Reminds Research Institutions They Must Support Women’s Careers
Family responsibilities are forcing many women to leave the upper ranks of life science research, according to a new survey of fellows at the National Institutes of Health. Women represent approximately 45 percent of the postdocs in biomedical research at U.S. universities and research institutions, but a far smaller percentage of women hold the top level positions of professor or principal investigator. According an NIH press release highlighting the findings, “only 29 percent of the tenure-track principal investigators (PI) and 19 percent of tenured PIs—the NIH equivalent of assistant and full professors, respectively—are women.”
Moreover, Science points out that at the NIH (subscription), “the share of women among its 900 tenured investigators has barely budged in the past decade, from 18 percent to 19 percent.”
Universities and research institutions must offer affordable child care and flexible working hours so that women who choose to have families can continue to do high-level research while they raise children. “Overt discrimination does not seem to be the issue,” Elisabeth Martinez, lead author of the survey, told Science.
The NIH release also highlighted the findings that, “although men and women rated themselves equally when it came to professional skill, men were significantly more confident that they could obtain a PI position and become tenured.” Moreover, married women usually have a spouse who works, but married men usually have a spouse who works part-time or not at all. This table and graph from the article (published in EMBO reports) make these statistics clear:
At an October hearing before Congress, former HHS Secretary Donna Shalala called for the creation of an NCAA for science and engineering. This inter-collegiate organization would work with universities and institutions around the country establish parity for women in science. This report only underscores the urgent need to make scientific professions more equitable.
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