In today's society, many might question if women are still disadvantaged in STEM. It's indisputable that progress has been achieved - women are gaining empowerment from supportive and encouraging organizations, and a diverse workforce is becoming a necessity in the industry. However, as the situation is progressing, much more can be done until pure equity can be obtained for all genders in the STEM industry.
Let's look at why is a woman disadvantaged in a STEM career in contrast to her male peers.
The cost of having children
Childbirth can have a deciding impact on the career of individuals who can bear children, especially in STEM, as it's a fast-paced, progressive industry that continuously evolves. After returning from maternity leave, many women find themselves feeling a lack of confidence to provide the same contributions as they used to due to missing out on work. This directly results in women either terminating their career or working part-time, and not attaining senior roles.
After studying the second edition of the STEM Workforce Report, published by the Office of the Chief Scientist, it is clear that there's a significant discrepancy in employment status among women in STEM who had a child and those who hadn't. Women who had children were less likely to be employed, as well as more likely to be working part-time instead. Consequently, men in the STEM industry were unaffected for the most part. Another intriguing note is that men with children would earn more than men without any.
Only one in six IT professionals are women, and one in ten are senior IT professionals. Another issue of female representation in the workforce, and a lack of role models to younger girls.
A powerful solution to this obstacle would be to grant parental leave to both men and women, as well as introduce arrangements that would assist women to quickly get back on track after maternity leave. Corporations that have adopted this approach report that it has been efficient at reintroducing women into their former routines.
The pay gap still exists
The pay gap remains prevalent in many industries.. Women in STEM have lower average pay, accounting for both part-time and full-time jobs.
According to the Deloitte UK publication of Technology, career pathways and the gender pay gap, women graduates in STEM in the UK earn 8% less, with the number leaping to 15% when it comes to a median full-time salary in Science, Research, Engineering and Technology. Another shocking finding is despite the gender pay gap closing steadily, at the current rate, the pay equivalence will not be attained until 2069.
The Fawcett Society to the Women and Equalities Committee Gender Pay Gap inquiry, December 2015, states: "Our labour market remains highly divided with sectors dominated by women tending to be the lowest paid.”
Lower pay grants
Accompanied by the present pay gap, there's another concern - women receive fewer grants, and if they succeed, they are paid less in contrast to men.
A team of Canadian researchers analysed data of over 23,000 Canadian federal grant applications and concluded that gender bias affects women's success rate when applying for grants. The success rate of women applicants was 0.9% lower when compared to their male peers. However, the numbers spike up to 4% if the schemes evaluate the applicant and not the quality of the research papers. This is an issue not only because women face prejudice, but also the best research might not be financed due to gender bias.
Furthermore, it's an obstacle in the UK. A study on differences in research funding for women scientists in global infectious disease research shows that 75-80% of the funding was awarded to males. In addition to that, "the median value of the award was greater for men than women."
Skewed perception of woman's capabilities
Although the views on women are advancing, women still have to battle undervaluation of their skills in everyday life. Moreover, it affects the professional environment, with STEM being no exclusion.
A study published by Ohio State University reveals the gender bias against women in publications. It was found that scientific articles written by men are considered to be higher quality in comparison to those written by women, with participants being of both sexes. In addition to this finding, it was also discovered that the public is more inclined to collaborate with male scientists than female ones.
It is likewise overlooked that due to gender bias, a woman is less inclined to be hired than a male candidate with identical qualifications. A study released by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that both sexes are twice as likely to hire a man as a woman.
Conducted by professors from Columbia University, Northwestern University, and the University of Chicago, the study asked recruiters of both sexes to hire candidates to handle simple mathematical tasks. Even when the applicants had an equal skill set, males were preferred over their female counterparts. Furthermore, when the recruiters were explicitly shown the women had an equivalent talent of performing as the male candidates, men were still 1,5 times more likely to be hired. The most shocking part of the study is that when the managers chose to hire a job applicant with a worse performance than their fellow candidate, two-thirds of the time the lesser candidate was a male.
Another US-based study examined a hiring process where female and male candidates had identical CVs, and the documents with a male name on them were favoured over those with a female name. The figures also show that male candidates got more mentoring and were viewed as more competent than their female counterparts.
Moreover, another analysis confirms that female lecturers are rated lower than males by their students, considering there is no difference in teaching standard. With all the bias being against women, it takes additional effort to reach the top level because of the skewed perception of our capabilities.
Conclusion
Summing all the points together, it is clear that women are disadvantaged in STEM fields, and the issues of inequality remain highly relevant. Although the situation is slowly and steadily improving, the faster we can achieve equality, the sooner we can have a varied workforce which harnesses the different talents of its members.
Written by Gerda Ugne Pupelyte.
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