Multilogue

Reflections on scientific careers

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PNAS (2019)

Why are women still underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) jobs? Social processes beyond individual preferences may shape the STEM employment trajectories of new mothers and new fathers differently. Using representative US longitudinal survey data, we followed full-time STEM professionals after the birth or adoption of their first child. We found substantial attrition of new parents; nearly one-half of new mothers and nearly one-quarter of new fathers leave full-time STEM employment after having children. Thus, parenthood is an important driver of gender imbalance in STEM employment, and both mothers and fathers appear to encounter difficulties reconciling caregiving with STEM careers. These findings have implications for the vitality of the US science and engineering workforce.

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Huge variations in US postdoc salaries point to undervalued workforce

Rare effort to track wages reveals inconsistencies and a gender pay gap.

A peer-reviewed report on the salaries of nearly 14,000 postdoctoral researchers working at 52 US institutions has revealed wide disparities. Salaries ranged from US$23,660 — the minimum wage set by the US Fair Labor Standards Act — to well over $100,000.

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How a hiring quota failed

Imposing a quota to boost the numbers of female academic researchers might have backfired.

The analysis suggests that committees affected by the quota were significantly less likely to hire women — perhaps because of retaliation from men who are miffed by the policy, says study author Pierre Deschamps, an economist at the Paris Institute for Political Studies (LIEPP).

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Rise of the temporary workforce

Increased job competition over the past 50 years has cut the average length of time astronomy and ecology graduates spend in academic posts from 35 to 5 years.

Recent decades have been marked by a surge in ‘short-term scientists’ who publish at least once but soon stop contributing to the literature. The analysis of astronomy and ecology journals going back to the early 1960s, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the average “half-life” of a science career — the time it takes for half the researchers of a given cohort to cease producing papers — has dropped from 35 years in the 1960s to only 5 years in the 2010s.

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Postdoctoral mentorship key to career success

Mentors can have a lasting influence, but it’s important to carve your own niche.

Researchers who incorporate ideas and techniques from multiple mentors while still forging their own paths are the most likely to succeed in academia, according to a study of 18,865 biomedical researchers published in Nature Communications.

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Scientists’ salary data highlight US$18,000 gender pay gap

Female PhD recipients in the United States expect to earn less than male colleagues.

Male researchers who gained PhDs in 2017, with jobs lined up, expect to earn median annual salaries of US$88,000, compared with $70,000 for women, the US National Science Foundation’s annual census has found.

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Women can benefit from female-led networks

Support-based peer associations offer professional value.

Family responsibilities and other societal barriers keep female leaders from joining male-dominated networks that offer professional benefits, according to a study, which also finds that some women are hesitant to join those networks.

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PNAS (2018)

In this paper, we study workforce trends in three scientific disciplines over half a century. We find dramatic shortening of careers of scientists across all three disciplines. The time over which half of the cohort has left the field has shortened from 35 y in the 1960s to only 5 y in the 2010s. In addition, we find a rapid rise (from 25 to 60% since the 1960s) of a group of scientists who spend their entire career only as supporting authors without having led a publication. Altogether, the fraction of entering researchers who achieve full careers has diminished, while the class of temporary scientists has escalated. We provide an interpretation of our empirical results in terms of a survival model from which we infer potential factors of success in scientific career survivability.

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Why a postdoc might not advance your career

Two studies reiterate that very few postdoctoral researchers land academic posts — and suggest that the skills postdocs learn are not sought by employers outside academia.

Postdoctoral training often leaves researchers ill-prepared for future careers, according to two studies that explored the realities of postdoc life at major research institutions.

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📖 Intellectual synthesis in mentorship determines success in academic careers

Nature Communications (2018)

While successful mentors tend to train successful students in academic career, it’s unclear how mentorship determines chances of a success in a trainee. Here, Liénard and colleagues analyze approximately 20 K mentor/trainee relationships in life sciences, and find that success of trainees is associated with an intellectual synthesis between their mentors’ research.

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Human Relations (2018)

Our study makes two important contributions. First, by highlighting personal hesitation as an intrinsic barrier, it extends the understanding of women’s motivations for networking based on social exchange theory. Second, based on structural barriers and personal hesitation, it develops a grounded theory model of networking that offers a holistic understanding of reasons that, from the perspective of the focal women, contribute to gender inequality in the workplace.

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Why diversity helps to produce stronger research

Teams should comprise all gender identities to spark the most innovative endeavours, say researchers.

Gender diversity in the research environment can drive scientific discovery, but, to fully realize the potential for innovation, inclusivity must be cultivated at multiple levels — from the research team to society, suggests a Perspective in Nature Human Behaviour.

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How to handle the one-size-fits-all PhD

Young researchers can use various strategies to help them to cope with the pressures and demands of doctoral programmes.

Science is a profession built on procedures whose outcomes are, by their nature, unpredictable, yet scientists are trained through inflexible PhD programmes that fail to accommodate that inherent uncertainty, and in which projects are expected to ‘work’.

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Salary and careers survey 2018: Results

Nature’s survey offers a snapshot of salaries and career paths in the scientific sector.

Nature’s biennial survey of salary and job satisfaction in the global science community underscores an important reality: there is a vast number of career opportunities for scientists beyond academic research, and some of those options might be more rewarding, whether emotionally, financially or both.

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Scandinavian Journal of Management (2018)

This study contributes to the literature on the neoliberal university and academic staff evaluation by using a systemic, power-sensitive approach that examines how postdocs enter the academic system and how manifestations of precarity are exacerbated. Our critical analysis reveals three manifestations of precarity that the current academic system creates for postdocs, related to control, contracts, and careers. We discuss the effects for individual postdocs and their careers and the quality of knowledge production in public funded higher education institutions.

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Research Policy (2018)

The study uncovers multiple individual, PI, as well as organizational and policy factors, including the lack of relevant skills, absence of support—and in some cases opposition—from their principal investigators, and poor availability of non-academic career preparation opportunities, among others. Viewed collectively, these elements likely hinder a move to non-academic scientific positions and thus have consequences for postdoc career trajectories and, by extension, the utilization of new knowledge.

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Women are less likely to finish their PhDs if they have no female peers on their courses.

The authors looked at data for 2,541 students starting PhDs at public universities in Ohio from 2005 to 2009. Women accounted for nearly 40% of the sample, but their numbers varied widely between programmes. When a cohort contained just one woman, she was 12% less likely to graduate within 6 years than were her male peers. But as the proportion of women increased, so did each woman’s likelihood of obtaining a degree. The authors suggest that women’s chances of earning a STEM PhD are linked to the ‘female-friendliness’ of that programme.