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YOU ARE IN » Home page > News and information main menu > Graduate Market Trends > Shaping science careers (Summer 09)

Shaping science careers (Summer 09)

• Shaping career paths in science
• Summary
• Introduction
• Background
• Methodology
• Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Compared
• The nature of research and women’s career intentions
• Discussion and Conclusions
• Moving forwards: recommendations

Shaping career paths in science

is the doctoral study experience different for male and female chemistry and molecular bioscience PhD students?

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Summary

Rebecca Smith (Biochemical Society) and Sarah Dickinson (Royal Society of Chemistry) present the findings from two research project investigating the PhD experience of doctoral student in chemistry and molecular biosciences. The project is part of wider efforts to explore the underrepresentation of women in science, engineering and technology occupations and shed further light on the problem described as ‘the leaky pipeline’, meaning that as women scientists flow along the career pipeline - a notional path representing training and advancement - they ‘leak out’ and are lost to science.

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Introduction

The latest data on the UK workforce indicates that only 28% of female Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) graduates are employed in SET occupations compared with 48% of men. The underrepresentation of women in SET is an issue which threatens our global competitiveness. It is an issue for society, organisations (such as strategy and policy-setting agents), employers and the individual.

In November 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), the Biochemical Society and the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science Engineering and Technology (UKRC) launched two reports examining the retention of women with PhDs in chemistry and molecular bioscience. Using a gendered analysis of the doctoral study experience and the career intentions of chemistry and molecular bioscience PhD students, this collaborative project aimed to understand what effect the PhD experience has on retention. The comparison between the two disciplines is important as it is often assumed that retention issues across the science sector affect different subjects similarly.

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Background

Women are underrepresented in Science Engineering and Technology (SET) careers; even in areas where recruitment at undergraduate level is good, qualified women are not retained in similar proportions to equally qualified men. This is evidenced in higher education by the fact that although biosciences has one of the highest proportions of female undergraduate students at around 60%, and around half of undergraduates in chemistry are female, at professorial level the proportions of women are much lower; 13% for biosciences and 6% for chemistry. The situation is sometimes described as ‘the leaky pipeline’; as scientists flow along the career pipeline - a notional path representing training and advancement - they ‘leak out’ and are lost to science. Similar trends are observed in industry although data on technical career paths is more difficult to obtain. Even where women are retained in industry, they may well move away from a technical career path in greater proportions than men.

In 2006, the RSC commissioned a survey of chemistry PhD students. Although the survey focused on the career intentions of PhD students, which can only predict their actual destinations to a certain extent, the survey revealed that:

• Over the course of the PhD the vast majority of both men and women continue to desire a career that requires their scientific background;
• Unlike male chemists, many female chemists are put off further chemistry research during the course of their PhD studies and;
• Of those students intending to stay in research, a smaller proportion of female than male chemists want an academic career, in the longer term.

The chemistry survey showed an increasing level of attrition in female students through the course of doctoral study; 72% of first year female students indicated that they wished to pursue a research career after finishing their PhD but only 37% of third year females did. This suggested that female chemistry PhD students re-think an intention to pursue a research career after their initial experience of doctoral study and/or research science. This pattern was not found among male chemistry PhD students (see figure 1).

Figure 1: Research Intentions of Chemistry PhD Students by Gender & Stage (percentages)

The UKRC were particularly interested in the findings from the RSC’s survey and commissioned further research to understand the reasons underlying the female attrition observed, and to find out whether the finding were general or specific to chemistry. The Biochemical Society agreed to collaborate in the follow up work, and two studies were undertaken. One, a survey to establish whether the findings for chemistry PhD students are reproduced in the molecular biosciences and the other, a qualitative study, which further explored what happens during the chemistry PhD to deter women from pursuing a research career.

The molecular biosciences were chosen as a comparator for several reasons: women are better represented in academic biological sciences than in chemistry from undergraduate to professorial level, both subjects are predominately lab-based, and molecular bioscience has a much shorter history as a discipline so it would be interesting to see if it had developed the same culture.

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Methodology

The original RSC survey of PhD chemistry students was administered as a self-completion, return-by-post, paper questionnaire and distributed to PhD students via chemistry departments. In total, 32 departments took part and 610 completed questionnaires were returned, representing 25% of the total number of questionnaires distributed. Using Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data (Student Data, relating to the year 2005-06) it is possible to estimate that 15% of the entire target population (chemistry doctoral students registered at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) took part in this survey (with 60% coverage).

The methodology employed in the molecular bioscience survey replicated that used to carry out the RSC survey of chemistry PhD. The target population for the survey was students studying for a molecular bioscience (or related) PhD at UK HEIs. Questionnaires were distributed to students through university departments known to have a large population of molecular bioscience PhD students. It was made clear to recipients that it was important they responded to the questionnaire regardless of whether or not they wished to pursue a career as a scientist.

To permit a comparison between chemistry and molecular bioscience PhD students, the questionnaire was very similar to the one used in the RSC survey of chemistry PhD students. Question wording was kept the same throughout but some additional questions were included in the molecular bioscience questionnaire and a small number of redundant questions were removed. Both closed questions (requesting respondents choose a response from a list) and open questions (requesting respondents write comments freely) featured in the questionnaire.

In total, 34 molecular bioscience departments were approached and 30 took part. 2304 questionnaires were distributed and 454 completed questionnaires were returned, constituting a 20% response rate. Using Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data it is possible to estimate that 7% of the eligible population took part in this survey.

The returned questionnaire data were digitised. The quantitative data (responses to the closed questions) were analysed with the aid of the software package SPSS and the qualitative data (responses to the open questions) were analysed with the aid of the software package NVivo.

The qualitative study of chemistry PhD students used two methods: telephone interviews and focus groups. It was cross-sectional, rather than longitudinal, in design. Eight focus groups with current UK domiciled chemistry PhD students (mainly second years in order to explore the apparent change of heart with regards to career intentions) were held in three university chemistry departments. Participants were grouped by ‘gender’, ‘number of years into doctoral study’ and ‘university department’. A total of 47 one-to-one telephone interviews were conducted, 24 with women and 23 with men, half of whom had recently completed their PhD and half of whom were in their third year of doctoral study.

The sample was selected randomly from the UK-domiciled respondents to the 2006 doctoral chemistry student survey who had indicated that they would not object to being contacted to participate in further related projects and had volunteered their contact details. Virtually all who were contacted agreed to be interviewed. Third year participants were drawn from those respondents who were in their first year of doctoral study at the time of the 2006 survey and recently completed participants were drawn from those respondents who were in their second year of doctoral study at the time of the 2006 survey.

Interviews were semi-structured to flexibly elicit participants’ accounts of their experience of the doctoral study. In particular, participants were encouraged to reflect on how their attitude towards their study had varied with time and how their career plans may have consequently changed. The telephone interviews were intended to enrich the focus group data by providing personal stories which, it was anticipated, focus group participants may not have felt able to share in a public forum.

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Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences Compared

The majority of both male and female molecular bioscience students do not regret their decision to undertake a PhD, despite acknowledging the long, unsociable working hours and feelings of isolation and pressure.

Like chemistry PhD students, the vast majority of molecular bioscience students wish to pursue careers which use their scientific background. However, in contrast to female chemistry PhD students, female molecular bioscience PhD students do not change their minds about pursuing research careers to anything like the same extent. Around two thirds of both male and female molecular bioscience survey respondents were planning a research career after completing their PhD. However, female respondents were less likely to be planning a research career in academia than male respondents (see figure 2).

Figure 2: Research Intentions of Molecular Bioscience PhD Students by Gender & Stage (percentages)

A contributing factor may be the standard and availability of careers advice which varies across the sector. Unlike chemistry respondents, a third of molecular bioscience respondents rated awareness of their job options outside academia as poor or very poor; the equivalent proportion amongst chemistry PhD students was notably smaller. Molecular bioscience PhD students were also less likely than chemistry PhD students to say they had the general skills employers were looking for. It might be sensible to ensure those molecular bioscientists who begin doctoral study with the intention of entering research are aware that their skills are also in demand in the wider labour market.

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The nature of research and women’s career intentions

The nature of research work appears to affect male and female PhD students differently, with female chemistry PhD students being more adversely affected.

The qualitative study identified a number of issues that arose during the PhD and that affected a larger proportion of women than men. These included supervision issues such as suffering little pastoral care and having to cope with a supervisor who lacks interpersonal/management skills; a lack of integration into research groups leading to feelings of isolation and exclusion; being uncomfortable with the culture of their research group especially where the culture was particularly ‘macho’; concern about poor (though normal) experimental success rates, apprehension about what others may infer about their skills and competence.

Considering these points a little further, male chemistry students view the frustrations and pressure of research as an initiation, which will result in their acceptance into the scientific community. By contrast, female chemistry students see these as an ordeal and become anxious that the poor success rates in their experiments reflect badly on them personally as these quotes show:

“I don’t think actually a PhD is anything like – or at least I hope that it’s nothing like – having a career in research. So if you like the PhD, you’ll probably like the rest of it. I think it’s kind of a trail or fire….”

(male chemistry PhD student)

“I’m sick of my PhD because my experiments aren’t working…..when you feel that nothing works you just go home and you’re depressed and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

(female chemistry PhD student)

The research also suggested that where women do not wish to pursue an academic career, this is because they perceived the rewards on offer insufficient to overcome the challenge and compromise entailed.

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Discussion and Conclusions

The contrasts found between chemistry and the molecular biosciences are interesting. It is difficult to know exactly why they arise but perhaps it is in part because molecular bioscience has a shorter history as a discipline, having yet to develop a discernable “masculine” culture for women to find unattractive or inhospitable. In addition, it is possible that female chemists are more likely to be deterred from pursuing research during their doctoral study then female molecular bioscientists as a result of being more aware of alternative career paths. The survey results showed that molecular bioscientists rated their awareness of job options outside academia as lower than that of chemists.

Despite the contrasts both chemistry and the molecular biosciences fail to retain female researchers in the long term. It seems reasonable to speculate that academia fails to retain many female molecular bioscientists and chemists as a result of the perceived/real difficulties of balancing science with family commitments (PhD students are unlikely to have caring responsibilities). Indeed the perception that motherhood and academia are incompatible was found in response to open-ended questions in both surveys as the following quotations illustrate:

“I enjoy my PhD and love working in science but have concerns for my future career because it feels as if women must chose between their career and having a family.”

(female molecular bioscience PhD student)

“Other women academics have warned me that working as a research scientist is not compatible with good parenting.”

(female chemistry PhD student)

In terms of the way forward, the situation may well be ‘catch-22’. Women ‘returners’ (i.e. women who have taken a career break but come back) are arguably needed to demonstrate to younger scientists that it is possible to combine an academic career with motherhood. However such role models may continue to be thin on the ground until it is perceived that a better work-life balance in scientific work is possible. Consideration of work-life balance is becoming an increasingly important issue in the employment of both men and women. However, as the revised Research Councils UK concordat seeks to emphasise, “the demanding nature of research careers has a disproportionate effect on certain groups, for example women hoping to start families”. The concordat recommends that “all members of the UK research community actively address the disincentives and indirect obstacles to retention and progression in research careers which may disproportionately impact on some groups more than others.” At present, scientific occupations offer little opportunity for flexible working and part-time employment opportunities are unusual on the premise that science is rarely successfully practised on a less than full-time basis.

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Moving forwards: recommendations

This research adds to the increasing amount of evidence that, in order to make progress on improving gender equality and diversity in science, the individual sciences should not be conflated . Whilst there are similarities between the sciences in terms of certain ‘women and science’ issues e.g. women are poorly represented in the higher grades of all scientific professions, there are also differences e.g. women are more poorly represented in physical science than in biological sciences. In seeking to retain women in science, it is arguable that each scientific discipline requires a different mix of equality and diversity policies. The differences found between chemistry and molecular bioscience as subject areas and the difference in male and female responses strongly reinforce this.

The RSC together with the UKRC and the Biochemical Society have developed a set of recommendations based on the findings of both surveys, and on the qualitative study:

Supervision

• Good supervision informed by an awareness of all aspects of equality and diversity will help all students, and therefore institutions should provide academic staff with training before they undertake the supervision of PhD students.
• PhD students should have access to a support team and mentoring should be available to students. Mentors should receive training which includes gender awareness.

Student Experience

• The overall assessment of research output should include an element related to the student experience as the training of research personnel is an important part of the research process.
• To increase awareness of the PhD experience, universities should ensure that guidance is provided for potential doctoral students. Potential students also have a personal responsibility to seek out information on the realities of the doctoral experience.

Careers Advice

• Careers information and advice targeted specifically at PhD students is needed to demonstrate alternative career routes as well as research careers.
• Additional training in gender and diversity awareness and careers in SET should be offered to those giving information, advice and guidance to PhD students, to ensure understanding of the issues faced in different area of SET and the different career paths open to both men and women.

Good Practice and Work Life Balance

• Academic institutions should ensure that departments consider work-life balance in all aspects of departmental activity, building on the information which is available in publications such as the RSC’s report ‘Planning for Success: Good Practice in University Science Departments’ and the UK Resource Centre’s Good Practice Guide on work/life balance, and implementing their own policies where necessary.

Copies of the reports are freely available online:

www.rsc.org/diversity

www.biochemistry.org

Special recognition must go to Jessica Lober-Newsome who undertook the research, and to the UKRC for providing the funding.