IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v11y2021i2p27-d523259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perceptions of Barriers to Career Progression for Academic Women in STEM

Author

Listed:
  • Christine O’Connell

    (Riley’s Way Foundation, New York, NY 11217, USA
    Stony Brook University, New York, NY 11794, USA)

  • Merryn McKinnon

    (Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia)

Abstract

Gender equity in academia is a long-standing struggle. Although common to all disciplines, the impacts of bias and stereotypes are particularly pronounced in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This paper explores what barriers exist for the career progression of women in academia in STEM disciplines in order to identify key issues and potential solutions. In particular, we were interested in how women perceive the barriers affecting their careers in comparison to their male colleagues. Fourteen focus groups with female-identifying academics showed that there were core barriers to career progression, which spanned countries, disciplines and career stages. Entrenched biases, stereotypes, double standards, bullying and harassment all negatively impact women’s confidence and sense of belonging. Women also face an additional biological burden, often being pushed to choose between having children or a career. Participants felt that their experiences as STEM academics were noticeably different to those of their male colleagues, where many of the commonly occurring barriers for women were simply non-issues for men. The results of this study indicate that some of these barriers can be overcome through networks, mentoring and allies. Addressing these barriers requires a reshaping of the gendered norms that currently limit progress to equity and inclusion.

Suggested Citation

  • Christine O’Connell & Merryn McKinnon, 2021. "Perceptions of Barriers to Career Progression for Academic Women in STEM," Societies, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-20, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:27-:d:523259
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/2/27/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/11/2/27/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cate Thomas & Colleen MacMillan & Merryn McKinnon & Hayley Torabi & Megan Osmond-McLeod & Ellen Swavley & Tamzen Armer & Kimberley Doyle, 2021. "Seeing and Overcoming the Complexities of Intersectionality," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-13, February.
    2. Tatyana Deryugina & Olga Shurchkov & Jenna Stearns, 2021. "COVID-19 Disruptions Disproportionately Affect Female Academics," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 111, pages 164-168, May.
    3. Junming Huang & Alexander J. Gates & Roberta Sinatra & Albert-László Barabási, 2020. "Historical comparison of gender inequality in scientific careers across countries and disciplines," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(9), pages 4609-4616, March.
    4. R. E. O’Dea & M. Lagisz & M. D. Jennions & S. Nakagawa, 2018. "Gender differences in individual variation in academic grades fail to fit expected patterns for STEM," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 9(1), pages 1-8, December.
    5. Rebecca Cassells & Alan S Duncan, 2020. "Gender Equity Insights 2020: Delivering the Business Outcomes," Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre Report series GE05, Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Antonio De Nicola & Gregorio D’Agostino, 2021. "Assessment of gender divide in scientific communities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(5), pages 3807-3840, May.
    2. Lin Zhang & Yuanyuan Shang & Ying Huang & Gunnar Sivertsen, 2022. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on publons," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 145-179, January.
    3. Jiao, Yang & Qi, Li & Chen, Zhuo, 2023. "Academic profile of Chinese economists: Productivity, pay, time use, gender differences, and impacts of COVID-19," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    4. Nicolás Ajzenman & Bruno Ferman & Sant’Anna Pedro C., 2023. "Discrimination in the Formation of Academic Networks: A Field Experiment on #EconTwitter," Working Papers 235, Red Nacional de Investigadores en Economía (RedNIE).
    5. Kwiek, Marek & Roszka, Wojciech, 2021. "Gender-based homophily in research: A large-scale study of man-woman collaboration," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    6. Josh Yamamoto & Eitan Frachtenberg, 2022. "Gender Differences in Collaboration Patterns in Computer Science," Publications, MDPI, vol. 10(1), pages 1-21, February.
    7. Ayllón, Sara, 2022. "Online teaching and gender bias," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    8. Schmal, W. Benedikt & Haucap, Justus & Knoke, Leon, 2023. "The role of gender and coauthors in academic publication behavior," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 52(10).
    9. Huyen Thanh T. Nguyen & Minh-Hoang Nguyen & Tam-Tri Le & Manh-Toan Ho & Quan-Hoang Vuong, 2021. "Open Access Publishing Probabilities Based on Gender and Authorship Structures in Vietnam," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(4), pages 1-16, October.
    10. Yue Wang & Ning Li & Bin Zhang & Qian Huang & Jian Wu & Yang Wang, 2023. "The effect of structural holes on producing novel and disruptive research in physics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(3), pages 1801-1823, March.
    11. Constantin Bürgi & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2022. "The influence of Covid-19 on publications in economics: bibliometric evidence from five working paper series," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5175-5189, September.
    12. Yu, Xiaoyao & Szymanski, Boleslaw K. & Jia, Tao, 2021. "Become a better you: Correlation between the change of research direction and the change of scientific performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    13. Merryn McKinnon & Christine O’Connell, 2020. "Perceptions of stereotypes applied to women who publicly communicate their STEM work," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, December.
    14. Zhang, Lin & Shang, Yuanyuan & HUANG, Ying & Sivertsen, Gunnar, 2021. "Gender differences among active reviewers: an investigation based on Publons," SocArXiv 4z6w8, Center for Open Science.
    15. Speer, Jamin D., 2023. "Bye bye Ms. American Sci: Women and the leaky STEM pipeline," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    16. Letki, Natalia & Biały, Grzegorz & Sankowski, Piotr & Walentek, Dawid, 2022. "Streamlining for excellence discriminates against women: A study of research productivity of 2.7 mln scientists in 45 countries," OSF Preprints yr8me, Center for Open Science.
    17. Davies, Benjamin, 2022. "Gender sorting among economists: Evidence from the NBER," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 217(C).
    18. Mike Thelwall & Tamara Nevill, 2019. "No evidence of citation bias as a determinant of STEM gender disparities in US biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(3), pages 1793-1801, December.
    19. Abdelghani Maddi & Lesya Baudoin, 2022. "The quality of the web of science data: a longitudinal study on the completeness of authors-addresses links," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(11), pages 6279-6292, November.
    20. Shen, Hongquan & Xie, Juan & Ao, Weiyi & Cheng, Ying, 2022. "The continuity and citation impact of scientific collaboration with different gender composition," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:11:y:2021:i:2:p:27-:d:523259. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.