The downside of women and science careers

[delalluvia]

Long but interesting about the pitfalls faced by women - and men - in science careers.  Spoke a lot to me since I have my degree in biology and had once upon a time hoped for a career in science.

Larry Summers was fired from his job as president of Harvard University partly for saying the following:

    "There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference's papers document [percentage of women among tenured professors of science] and have been documented before with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions. One is what I would call the-I'll explain each of these in a few moments and comment on how important I think they are-the first is what I call the high-powered job hypothesis. The second is what I would call different availability of aptitude at the high end, and the third is what I would call different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search. And in my own view, their importance probably ranks in exactly the order that I just described."

This fired up an international debate about whether or not there were enough women with the towering intellects required to make it as top scientists and mathematicians, the sorts who would be likely to receive tenure at elite universities.

Summers was deservedly castigated, but not for the right reasons. He claimed to be giving a comprehensive list of reasons why there weren't more women reaching the top jobs in the sciences. Yet Summers, an economist, left one out: Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States.

This article explores this fourth possible explanation for the dearth of women in science: They found better jobs.

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

[Front-Ranger]

...He claimed to be giving a comprehensive list of reasons why there weren't more women reaching the top jobs in the sciences. Yet Summers, an economist, left one out: Adjusted for IQ, quantitative skills, and working hours, jobs in science are the lowest paid in the United States.

This article explores this fourth possible explanation for the dearth of women in science: They found better jobs.[/b]

http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science

I never thought of that, but you are undoubtedly right! I work in engineering and a lot of scientists come over to this side because the opportunities are better.

[brokeplex]

to my knowledge, careers in engineering have always been a better route to upward mobility than pure science. if you look at the largest private sector employers of non medically related scientists (oil and gas, petrochemical, other extractive industries) you see that for both men and women the route to the job at the top is the engineering route, not chemist, geologist, or biologist.

but, the articles above seem to be implying that female scientists are proportionately underpaid vis a vis their male counterparts. I think that if you look more closely and coorelate longevity of employment, patents, degree level, etc ,you find that as in most areas in the economy - there is no pay disparity between males and females in today's job market.

[Artiste]

May females have equal education and opportunity in jobs and salaries too as males !!