AUSTRALIA: Removing barriers to women researchers

Australia's largest research employer has committed its executives to remove obstacles to the promotion of highly skilled women and to increase incentives to encourage women to return to the scientific workforce after family-related career interruptions.

The promises by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO, were two of many commitments made by research funding bodies, leaders and employers who met for the first time last month at a "Women in Science and Engineering Summit" in Parliament House, Canberra.

All the research leaders agreed to take the UN Women's Empowerment Principles back to their organisations with a view to adopting them. But the barriers limiting the role of women in the world of science and research will not easily be taken down - at least if history is any guide.

The summit, attended by Kate Ellis, Minister for the Status of Women, discussed how to keep women in science and encourage more young women into engineering as a way of boosting productivity and equity.

The nation's leading research funding organisations, the Australian Research Council and the National Health and Medical Research Council, agreed to changes in how they assess research publications in grant applications from women with interrupted careers.

The ARC agreed to extend the period taken into account while the NHMRC this year will consider any nominated five years of an applicant's career rather than simply the previous five years; it has also agreed to monitor gender issues in general.

The Australian Technology Network Universities set a performance target so the number of women who teach science, engineering and technology subjects will be in the same proportion as those employed in STE industries, currently about 16%.

IBM Australia, a significant employer of scientists and technologists, agreed to support CSIRO's Science in Schools programme which aims to attract more students, and particularly girls, into science as a career.

The Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies, Australia's peak body for science and technology, has undertaken to work with scientific societies Australia-wide to conduct an audit of practices with a view to increasing the participation of women through best practice. The federation says it will also gather examples of existing practices, programmes and policies that have been successful, and develop a toolkit for guiding the science and technology sector.

Despite these declarations and promises of action, the challenges women face in achieving equity with men in research and in academe are substantial.

Across Australia's higher education sector, women are now in the majority in some areas: in fact, 53% of the entire university student body is female as is the case at the lower levels of university administrative staff. Among academics, however, women are still concentrated in lecturer and senior lecturer positions.

In its strategy to improve the position of women, the vice-chancellors' lobby group Universities Australia notes that in late 2009, 18%, or 7 of 39, of vice-chancellors were women as were 34% of deputy vice-chancellors while just on 40% of senior administrative staff were women.

"Progress has been made but it is slow and not evenly distributed. Just as with our students, there are distinct patterns of clustering of women in certain administrative portfolios and academic disciplines as well as certain leadership roles," UA says in a document outlining the strategy.

It refers to a "pressing question" of attracting domestic students - the future academic and research workforce - to PhDs, and the importance of women's participation in terms of current and future trends. But it notes there is evidence that the career paths of academic women and men are different, with those of men being quite linear and those of women often being "more labyrinthine". These different patterns need to be taken into account as new members of staff are recruited in a highly competitive environment.

"[The academic] gender composition is not reflected in the representation of academic women, especially in senior leadership across the sector, nor is it reflected in significant changes in the distribution of women across broad fields of education," the UA document says.

"This picture raises questions about the role models that are being provided to students, especially those in the PhD cohorts who represent the future generation of university leaders."

A national survey of 2,000 women five to seven years after graduating with PhDs found significant differences between male and female PhD candidates in attitudes, family circumstances, the social context of PhD research, employment outcomes and career development. In all of these matters women are less likely than men to report positive outcomes, a report of the survey says.

The survey was commissioned by UA and carried out by the University of Queensland's social research centre. Its report refers to the difficulty women face in establishing a research profile that relates to their non-standard career path, where breaks for child-rearing, lack of opportunities to do postdoctoral fellowships and take sabbatical or study leave have impacted throughout their careers.

"Research shows that for both male and female academics, success is seen as incremental progression. However, women are likely to enter the academy with less human capital (formal qualifications and work experience) than men and do not seem to attack the career structure as vigorously as men. But while women may have less specific career plans than men there is no evidence women are less committed to their careers than men," the report says.

Among other findings:

* Female graduates were significantly more likely than male graduates to report that they pursued their PhD for such intrinsic motivations as intellectual and academic development, interest in the discipline area and interest in the thesis topic, and personal satisfaction.
* Female PhD graduates were much more likely to complete their PhD as a solo project and were significantly less likely to be part of a research group.
* Female graduates reported significantly less encouragement from their principal supervisor than males in those areas relevant to building academic careers: publishing their own work; preparing funding proposals; giving conference papers; and developing professional relationships.
* In general, assistance in gaining employment was significantly more likely to be available to male rather than female PhD candidates.
* A significantly higher proportion of female graduates were in less secure employment situations and were more likely to work part-time.
* While 90% of male graduates with children were working full-time, only 69% of female graduates with children were.
* Female graduates worked to a greater extent in academic teaching and in advising or mentoring students while male graduates worked to a greater extent undertaking research, managing and supervising others and product development.

"When asked to rate the factors that determine a successful career, both male and female graduates accorded high significance to having a PhD from a leading university, having good social networks/connections and knowing the right people," the report says.

"Overall, the results indicated that doctoral graduates in this survey were largely achieving successful labour market outcomes and were satisfied with the quality of research higher degree training. The results also indicated that female graduates were generally on lower terms regarding earnings, employment conditions and level of appointment and these gender differences were more pronounced within the group of graduates with children and for those working at one of the [research intensive] universities.

"The general conclusion supported by this study is that there are indeed significant differences between male and female PhD candidates in attitudes, family circumstances, the social context of PhD research, employment outcomes, and career development. In all of these matters women are less likely than men to report positive outcomes."