EUROPE: Women lag in scientific research

A new European gender survey has confirmed the findings of other recent reports that women lag significantly behind men in scientific research and that the higher the position, the fewer women are found. The new survey finds that while roughly equal numbers of men and women start off in science, relatively few women make it to the top: thus 83.6% of men are employed on a permanent basis while only 56% of women are. Also women tend to concentrate on subjects like biology and medicine while male scientists are much more diversified.

The reasons are not clear but the Gender and science survey by the European Union's EADGENE Network of Excellence and SABRE project seems to suggest that women may approach science with a preformed disposition to accept a lower status for themselves.

For instance 76.6% of women agree that 'research is ruled by men' but only 47.3% of men judge the situation in the same way. Similarly, three-quarters of the women agreed that administrative and subordinate tasks were more readily assigned to women, with only a third of men agreeing. Well over half or 57.4% of women respondents believed that "female researchers lacked the competitive behaviour required to reach more important positions".

The results confirm that many women participate more actively at the beginning of their scientific career, with their work ambitions reduced after having children, said Simona Palermo, researcher at the Pagano de Lodi Technology Park in Italy, in a European Commission briefing note on the project. Even today, seven out of 10 female researchers and six out of 10 men believe it is very difficult combining a career in science with looking after children, Palermo commented.

The European Parliament recently backed a report Women in Science by the Danish MEP Britta Thomsen calling for a bigger role for women in research and setting out specific initiatives to improve the gender balance. Thomsen noted that although women accounted for more than 50% of European students in general, and represented 43% of PhDs, they held only 15% of senior university posts.

She called for a genuine gender balance in the membership of decision-making bodies, the mainstreaming of the male-female dimension in research programmes and support for scientific careers for women as means of correcting the imbalance.

alan.osborn@uw-news.com