A global survey on the perceptions and impacts of gender inequality in the Earth and space sciences

Abstract

The leaky pipeline phenomenon refers to the disproportionate drop-out of female scientists at higher academic career levels and is a major problem in the natural sciences. Identifying the underlying causes is challenging, and thus solving the problem remains difficult. To better understand the reasons for the leaky pipeline, we assess the perceptions and impacts of gender bias and imbalance—two major drivers of the leakage—at different academic career levels with an anonymous survey in geoscience academia (n=1220). The survey results show that both genders view male geoscientists as substantially more gender-biased than female scientists, with nearly half of the female full professors considering their male colleagues as biased (vs. 21.3% of male full professors). Moreover, female geoscientists are more than twice as likely to experience negative gender bias at their workplaces and scientific organizations compared to male geoscientists, and female professors report experiences with negative bias at the highest rate (37.8%) among all career stages. There are also pronounced gender differences regarding (i) the relevance of role models, which are most important at the PhD level for women, but at the postdoc or higher levels for men, (ii) family-friendly working conditions, which are important in the future to 76.1% of female PhD students vs. 57.9% of male PhD students and (iii) the approval of gender quotas for academic positions (supported by 44.9% female vs. 7.9% male respondents). Given the male dominance in senior career levels, our results emphasize that those feeling less impacted by the negative consequences of gender bias and imbalance are the ones in position to tackle the problem. We thus call for actions to better address gender biases and to ensure a balanced gender representation at decision-making levels to ultimately retain more women in geoscience academia.

Inspiration, inoculation, and introductions are all critical to successful mentorship for undergraduate women pursuing geoscience careers

“…ecent research points to a persistent disparity in the representation and inclusion of individuals in the geosciences based on gender, ability status, ethnicity and race, and sexual orientation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] . Mentoring and role modeling are recognized as part of a solution for achieving greater recruitment and retention of students from the underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, such as the geosciences 3,[14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] .…”

Invited perspective: “Natural hazard management, professional development and gender equity: let’s get down to business.”

“…Second, because women employed at such positions can always be taught that they only got it because of their gender, not their capacities" ID12. A global survey targeting Earth and Space scientists by Popp et al (2019) clearly showed the divided opinion on quotas. They noted how quotas' favour tends to be gendered, with 44.9% of women and 27.9% of men sharing a favourable opinion and career stage related.…”

Beyond x,y,z(t); Navigating New Landscapes of Science in the Science of Landscapes

“…Could it be that a fixation on data density is not compatible with the questions relevant to the communities most impacted by landscape change in the Anthropocene, or to the methods most suitable or accessible for conducting research that is relevant there? Optimistically, we hope that asking a greater breadth of questions might also help improve on the diversity crisis that plagues the earth sciences (Bernard & Cooperdock, 2018; King et al, 2018; Popp et al, 2019).…”