Study Probes Gender Gap in Sciences

Women pursuing careers in physics and astronomy are just as successful as their male counterparts in advancing through the academic hierarchy beyond the post-graduate level, according to a study released last Friday by the American Institute of Physics (AIP).

The study, which aimed to explain the gender gap between men and women in academia in physics and astronomy, was published a month after University President Lawrence H. Summers suggested that innate differences may help explain the lower numbers of women in science.

It concluded that there is no significant difference in drop-out rates between male and female scientists at the post-graduate level.

The study also found that the greatest drop-off in female participation in physics occurs between the end of high school—where half of physics students are female—and college, where less than one quarter of undergraduate physics degrees go to women.

But Rachel Ivie, who authored the report, contends that the decision by women to leave physics takes place much earlier than college.

“It is my hypothesis that the decision is made in the early years, in the K-12 educational system,” Ivie said.

Although the report does not find statistical evidence of discrimination in hiring practices, Ivie said this does not rule out discrimination more generally as a factor in the debate.

“This study does not reflect other forms of discrimination, such as climate and discouragement from participation in the field,” Ivie said. “This report does not support the assertion that there is no discrimination.”

The findings of the study also run counter to Summers’ contention that the primary reason for the relatively small number of women in academic positions in the sciences is due to conscious choice, as a result of the conflict between the long workweek of tenure-seeking professors and the desire for child-rearing.

Summers characterized this tension in his National Bureau of Economic Research remarks as a “general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity.”

Ivie added that she thought innate differences to be an unlikely cause of the disparity. She noted that although women earned only 18 percent of the Ph.D.’s in the United States in 2003, this is a large increase from the 2.4 percent of total Ph.D.’s earned by women in the 1970s.

Such a quick change in innate ability would be highly improbable, she said.

The study casts the focus of the debate over female representation in the sciences onto socialization, and shifts attention to high school and the younger grades where the underrepresentation may start, Ivie said.

“I don’t think the global experience of being a scientist is presented clearly in the early grades,” said Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics Jene A. Golovchenko. “I feel that we try very hard to be open, accessible, and encouraging, but the pre-college experience has enormous leverage.”