Most scientists leave after their PhD, if they know what's good for them. Postdocs suck, PIs suck, and big industry is slashing r+d budgets as fast as they can. Science as it's performed is only appropriate for the truly obsessive.
Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
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Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#62My wife's experience: PI: "You put your kid in front of the TV for 2 hours a day to get stuff done? That's terrible parenting." PI: "You will be late 1 day for a meaningless group presentation to your own lab, because your child is sick and can't go to daycare? Get your priorities straight."
This is what husbands are for.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#63While the title focuses on female scientists, males are also affected. From the article: "...23% of men and 43% of women who had become parents had left full-time STEM employment. ... This compared to 16% of child-free men and 24% of child-free women."
Looks like offering childcare onsite could alleviate some of this at least in the early years —but may only postpone the inevitable departure. As far as I understand it even at these high perk Santa Clara/Silicon Valley companies childcare isn’t a given. There are waiting lists and other limits. They want to attract women, but they fall short on this aspect.
Theres also plenty of evidence that children flourish way more under the guardianship of parents* rather than at least traditional day care. Having kids should push you out of full time work because raising kids is its own nigh-full time job.
The real problems are A. the number of people who can actually do that is way below replacement rates on the current population and B. women are still dropping their workforce participation much moreso than men are.
[*] I don't think it needs to be biological parents, more that many-to-one day care, especially with rotating or inconsistent caretakers and especially the younger you get, is harmful to development, Theres a lot of research on "models" of parenting and child rearing and how effective they are at producing the "best" children by varing definitions of best, but classical day care is usually considered by most metrics one of the worst.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#64Life is short, few things are more meaningful and rewarding than raising human beings.
Then why don't men leave their fields in the same numbers as women after they have a kid?
One explanation would be, that men (on average) favor abstract subjects (STEM), and women (on average) favor social interaction (children).
(See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#... - Childhood play, Intelligence, Personality traits, Empathy)
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Then why don't men leave their fields in the same numbers as women after they have a kid?
One explanation would be, that men (on average) favor abstract subjects (STEM), and women (on average) favor social interaction (children). (See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#... - Childhood play, Intelligence, Personality traits, Empathy)
Seems like those who already had full-time STEM jobs would favor them pretty hard, yet they still leave at nearly at twice the rate as their male counterparts.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#66I have yet to be told why it is important for there to be as many women in STEM as men apart from statements that I'm sexist for not knowing
If you agree to the basic principle that scientific ability and thought is equally prevalent amongst men and women, having fewer women scientists means we are not getting and developing the best scientific minds. Having as many women as men also means a you girl doesnt think science is for boys only which again means we potentially miss out on good/great scientific minds purely because they self-select out. So if you…
We are not getting and developing the best scientific minds anyway. Not by a long way.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#67Is there a problem with part-time science? I am not reading the article and I imagine this is a tangent, but it would actually be interesting if work in true science was thought of as a part time pursuit, at least by practicing engineers and others in technical fields that had ideas they were interested in studying scientifically but their day jobs are far too lucrative to leave for the pursuit of knowledge. That, or the 20% time policy (again, no idea how this works in practice) being adopted at a more national level, somehow creating incentives for companies to allow their talent to pursue science that might be a bit more out there than would traditionally receive a formal grant.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#68I have yet to be told why it is important for there to be as many women in STEM as men apart from statements that I'm sexist for not knowing
you definitely sound it...
its not so much about having the same number as it is about providing the same opportunities. If new moms had the same support, be it from family members and their communities, they would be less likely to leave their positions.
Some things that would help in my opinion as a mother: affordable and accessible day care including back up care, at least 12 months maternity leave, flexible work arrangements (time and place), PTO (imagine both parents only have 2 weeks to spend with their kids outside of weekends), extended school and camp programs, affordability of all.
I went back to work when babe was 4 months. I have only 2 weeks PTO, there inst even a Christmas shut down, I have no family in the area, the daycare centers around me have 1 year waiting lists and are over $2500/month. I am underpaid. My work is flexible thankfully.
I don't blame women who quit.
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#69I have yet to be told why it is important for there to be as many women in STEM as men apart from statements that I'm sexist for not knowing
as long as there isn’t then people will blindly look at the percentages and say it must be discrimination that causes the disparity
Re: Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child
#70Life is short, few things are more meaningful and rewarding than raising human beings.
Then why don't men leave their fields in the same numbers as women after they have a kid?
There could be many reasons: Perhaps because mothers are more nurturing and have a more intense desire to take care of their newborn children, after all they shared the same body for 9 months. Another could be the hormonal changes postpartum, which might trigger emotional and physical changes, etc. Childbearing is no small feat.