
Nearly Half of US Female Scientists Leave Full-Time Science After First Child - chriskanan
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00611-1
======
gervase
My wife and I are both STEM PhDs, and she left research after our first child
was born; we could be a case study for this article.

For us, it was because her field (immunology) was simply less lucrative than
mine (computer science). Given the differences in gender distributions between
both fields, and the pay gap between fields, I think simplifying this as STEM
collectively isn't sufficiently granular. I wonder what the rates are for
"left CS after child" vs "left biology after child", and how they compare.

With that being said, it's likely that there are also systemic/structural
differences as well; research (and academia in particular) is notorious for
poor work-life balance (prior to tenure). Social undercurrents of expectation
towards primary caregivers would certainly have some influence as well.

I know it shifts the narrative slightly, but I would also be interested to see
the effects of PhDs on birthrates, broken down by field, gender, and country
of birth. It seems to me that it would be negatively correlated, but I don't
have the data to back up that observation.

------
therealforsen
I 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

~~~
gboudrias
The closer your field's demographics are to your society's, the lower the risk
of (unconscious) bias is. Science as a whole should strive to be as unbiased
as possible, as that's the closest we can get to objectivity.

The same logic applies to businesses, to reduce the risk of making mistakes
that come with echo chambers.

~~~
belorn
Using Swedish statistics from a few years ago, 12.5% of the population has a
professional job which has at minimum 40% men and 40% women. 88.5% do not.
Split per gender this was 88.4% for men and 88.6% for women.

If we state that bias is a risk then we must conclude that around 90% of the
population work in echo chambers (more if we find that 60/40 is still quite
bad segregation) and could use the benefit of reduced risk of mistakes. It
would be interesting to hear what suggestions people have to address this
generally so that the 88.4% of men and 88.6% women can reduce the risk.

~~~
gboudrias
Could you explain what point you're making? I can't tell if you're disagreeing
with me or not.

~~~
belorn
Not an disagreement, but rather a remark. What ever the effect of gender
segregation is, it would then be practically universal here because thats how
the data look like.

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microDude
My 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."

~~~
lixtra
Why was it your wife’s problem when the child was sick and not yours?

EDIT: Sorry, I just assumed that you didn’t equally stay at home when the kid
was sick. How did your boss react when you didn’t show up?

~~~
gbear605
Note that it wasn’t him criticizing her - it was her boss, at least assuming
PI means principal investigator.

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chriskanan
While 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."

~~~
gotocake
That’s even more stark when you put it that way. Men leave at a rate of 9%
more than their background rate when they have children, women leave 19% more
with kids, over a base rate that even without children exceeds the male rate
by 8%.

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rb808
Its kinda interesting to see the related articles on the same site: about how
many of the smartest scientists are more successful doing other stuff (like
finance). [https://www.nature.com/news/life-outside-the-lab-the-ones-
wh...](https://www.nature.com/news/life-outside-the-lab-the-ones-who-got-
away-1.15802)

Perhaps there is a common theme that Full-Time science isn't necessarily the
best life path for many people and the "US Female Scientists who leave" are
actually happy with the outcome rather than symptom of a problem.

You can phrase it another way - "Many Male Scientists stuck in their job and
unable to change their STEM careers".

~~~
dogma1138
It’s pretty universal it’s jusy like asking where are all the US soccer
superstars when the answer is that they are they are playing in the NBA and
the NFL. Elite athletes are going to be elite athletes the sport itself is
secondary, smart people are going to be successful in any field and the field
of choice is also nearly always secondary to their success.

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jhanschoo
It's disappointing to see just how much articles like these inspire some
frequenters here to come out with their pet sexist theories on why this is
expected and why such studies are not warranted.

To address one aspect of criticism, studies like these are not necessarily
with an interest toward equal representation for its own sake, nor something
that is best dealt with by resigning to the status quo that people are free to
make choices and they deal with the consequences of it. There is talent lost
in the field when stuff like this happens, and this is a first step to
understanding if there are more efficient ways to address a need among
families that is not currently being adequately addressed. If these can be
addressed efficiently, then people will make different choices, and the
consequences of those different decisions may be a net benefit to everyone.

------
ancorevard
Life is short, few things are more meaningful and rewarding than raising human
beings.

~~~
kevincrane
Then why don't men leave their fields in the same numbers as women after they
have a kid?

~~~
tomp
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#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology#Psychological_traits)
\- Childhood play, Intelligence, Personality traits, Empathy)

~~~
kevincrane
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.

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b_tterc_p
I would bet this is a symptom of STEM PhD holders being educated and tending
to have wealthier partners. It’s not that they must leave STEM, it’s that they
can, and many many people would prefer to raise a family than work

~~~
alkibiades
yes. everyone assumes that disparity == discrimination and that women have no
choice.

------
mikekchar
Completely anecdotal evidence, but every female coworker I've ever worked with
has left work to raise their child after the first baby. Every single one of
them said that they were definitely coming back before they went on maternity
leave (and I believe that they believed it).

The main issue in every case was that as the new mothers got to the end of
their maternity leave, they started to think about day care. In the end, they
felt that they could not trust the day care centres with their child.
Similarly the mothers did not trust their own husbands to look after the child
because the husband had not spent much time with the child at that point.
Because all of the families I knew were relatively well off with dual incomes,
they eventually decided that the woman would quit work to look after the
child.

In my anecdotal data, in no cases was there a salary gap between the man and
the woman. Both were making roughly the same amount. Neither was it a case of
not being able to afford child care -- although, once they crunched the
numbers the cost of child care was a good percentage of one of the salaries,
so it made it easier to take the financial hit to move to a single income. As
far as I could tell, in all cases it just came down to trust.

For this reason, I think there should be some sort of encouraged paternal
leave. For example, the government/company in partnership could pay for 80% of
the salary for 6 months for the father to look after the child. This would
occur immediately after the mother's maternity leave.

What this does is provide a financial incentive for the father to learn to
look after the child. When the paternity leave is finished, then the choices
look very different. I think it's still likely that one parent (in well to do
dual family incomes) will choose to look after their child and quit their job
(and I see nothing wrong with that). However, now the _woman_ has spent the
last 6 months working and it will be a harder decision to quit. The _man_ now
has had a chance to show that he can look after the child and the woman will
be able to trust him with that responsibility.

I honestly believe without that kind of system, there will _always_ be a
disparity between men and women when it comes to one parent choosing to quit
their job and raise children. I should point out that, personally, I think
raising children is a wonderful job, even if it doesn't pay so well ;-)
Sometimes I think modern society looks down on that role and I think it's
rather unfair. However, I do understand that we aren't quite modern enough to
make that job reasonably risk free (you're dependent upon your spouse which is
not always going to work out). We've got a long way to go...

~~~
zik
By the time you have two children the cost of child care is often similar to
or greater than after tax income. It's just not really financially viable to
work at that point.

~~~
asdfasgasdgasdg
People often make this argument, but it's an incautious one. It assumes the
stay-at-home spouse's pay won't go up in the future, but this isn't the case.
After four or five years, you won't need all-day childcare any more. However,
the SAHP's earning potential will have gone down due to their time out of the
workforce. This has compounding effects down the line. If you spreadsheet it
out under reasonable assumptions, your after-tax income from the SAHP has to
be substantially lower than the cost of childcare before it makes sense for
them give up work over the long run. Obviously it depends on the family, but I
think a lot of people take a fairly myopic view of this question and don't
think about the long-term consequences.

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borkt
Is 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.

------
Rebelgecko
If I'm understanding the timeline of the study properly, they're looking at
parents of toddlers. IMO it would be more interesting to see how many parents
were still working part-time or not at all once their kids are old enough to
go to school

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xkcd-sucks
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.

------
gwright
It wouldn't surprise me to learn that these findings could be repeated across
all/most industries. I doubt that it is just female _scientists_ that make
this choice.

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crowdpleaser
I wonder what % of these cases could be explained by understanding how much
money each parent is making.

I'd wager that US Female Scientists probably make less than their partners.
I'd wager that it's more likely for a US Female Scientist to stay in her
position when she makes more money than her partner.

Do US Female Scientists have a preference for starting families with those who
out-earn them?

------
jriot
I was accepted to a PhD in both economics and math, yet I had to turn them
down due to being a parent of two small children. My wife stays at home with
them, thus reducing my salary to a TA wasn't feasible for 4 - 6 years.

Is there a problem with the system when men have to give up opportunities due
to having children?

~~~
buttcoinslol
Somebody is going to point out that you and your wife made the decision to
have children as well as having your wife stay at home with them instead of
working, so it might as well be me. You made conscious decisions that excluded
you from opportunities, sorry.

~~~
jriot
Seems to be the same for women here. It was their choice to have children thus
leaving their field.

Why do we care that not everyone is offered the same opportunities? Life isn't
fair.

Until I see women fighting to take on all the roles men have taken in life,
Alaskan commercial fishermen, roughneck oil rig workers, loggers etc... and
just not 1 or 2, equal representation throughout I am not concerned with
unequal representation in STEM, tech or any of the fashionable areas to be
concerned with.

~~~
mav3rick
"Why do we care that not everyone is offered the same opportunities? Life
isn't fair."

Does that mean we live with the status quo ? Whether it's institutional
racism, sexism or plain fascism, do we not fight against inequalities in
society to make it better ? You're lucky to have 24x7 electricity and internet
connection, you wouldn't be so gung ho about "Life isn't fair" if you couldn't
sustain yourself.

"Until I see women fighting to take on all the roles men have taken in life,
Alaskan commercial fishermen, roughneck oil rig workers, loggers etc... and
just not 1 or 2, equal representation throughout I am not concerned with
unequal representation in STEM, tech or any of the fashionable areas to be
concerned with."

Who are you to gatekeep what they can or can't go in ? I guarantee you most
middle class males also won't go for these jobs, demand is often governed by
economic opportunities and right now services and software is ruling the
roost. Who are you to decide these arbitrary standards for being eligible for
"fashionable" sectors.

~~~
jriot
Life will never be fair. That is the status quo of life since the beginning of
time, it will never change. Regardless of what you try to do, it will never be
fair.

I didn't see women fighting to get into those physically demanding jobs, or
demand quotas or any of the other nonsense we see today. It's fashionable to
be tech because it is easy work that provides a comfortable lifestyle.
Thinking otherwise is foolish.

I can decide these arbitrary standards just as one else can decide their own
arbitrary standard just because they don't conform to your standards doesn't
mean they are wrong.

Any quota placed on the diversity of race, gender or another divide we can
think of is asine, waste of time, and pointless. You can think otherwise, I
don't really care, I don't need everyone to like or agree with me. I accept
that as a part of life.

~~~
aeredhel
Original piece was about science, and it does not pay anywhere near as well as
tech does. And plenty of jobs provide comfortable lifestyle, the IT is
fashionable because it is all the hype now.

> I didn't see women fighting to get into those physically demanding jobs

I don't see hordes of men striving to be lumberjacks or miners either. For
some reason most men want to sit in the comfortable office or a research lab
too.

Although I agree with you about "life isn't fair and probably never will be"
part, gatekeeping women from entering professions and not offering them equal
opportunities (should be italicized) is not the unfairness we should keep. It
is a degenerate mindset that must be eradicated.

But yeah, expecting equality of outcome is foolish and quotas are probably not
a good idea.

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sadris
This is why I think women would birth children first and then decide if they
want to raise them or pay someone else to raise them. Pretty stupid to spend
4-8 years of your life and thousands of dollars on schooling only to abandon
that investment.

------
bitL
That's very uneconomical and an inefficient allocation of limited resources.
Is there a way to "force" them to come back, i.e. by offering 80% off on
student loans while raising costs 5x in parallel that can't be repaid by their
spouses? There should be some kind of responsibility incorporated to the
system. One should not just cherry pick the good parts (status/prestige/free
time).

