More girls than ever are embracing science subjects, outperforming boys worldwide. Yet this success has still not translated to proportional representation of women in STEM fields, despite decades of policies, strategies and interventions. Although there are many reasons for this, we cannot ignore the impact of the inequitable choices that mothers face in career paths that are misaligned with the parenting journey.
I have worked in and around the research sector for nearly 30 years, starting at a time when the “leaky pipeline” of STEM research was just beginning to receive wider attention. I have been a mother for 20 of those years.
To combine caring responsibilities with a career path characterised by precarity and individual challenges, I have made decisions that, in hindsight, were never conducive to long-term success: multiple career breaks, extended part-time work and being unable to work overtime.
It is from this perspective that I offer suggestions on supporting mothers in STEM careers. I acknowledge that not all women want to be mothers or use gendered terms, but feel that “mother” and “motherhood” are relevant in this context.
Address maternity bias
Maternity bias refers to the discrimination women face because of motherhood, and it remains one of the strongest forms of gender bias in the workplace. The discrimination women experience as mothers manifests in subtle ways:
- Mistaking a pause in work during maternity leave for a lack of ambition
- Misinterpreting reduced working hours as reduced competence
- Interpreting the prioritisation of family duties with a lack of commitment
- Failing to provide career development opportunities, perhaps out of respect for an individual’s time, but damaging nonetheless
- These subtle forms of discrimination are hard to challenge. Indeed, maternity bias is often internalised by women themselves.
Despite its prevalence, discussions around maternity bias and the related motherhood penalty are not commonplace in research environments. It is possible that the introduction of extended maternity leave and shared parental leave has led many to assume that motherhood no longer negatively impacts women’s careers.
But such policies require a change of mindset to be effective. Leaders should be aware of the impacts of motherhood and how these intersect with academic norms. They should know that while women are penalised for parenthood, fathers often benefit from a “fatherhood premium”, which can lead to improved career outcomes.
Although workshops on the menopause are welcome additions to employee training, they highlight a lack of discussion around the impact of pregnancy and maternity and how these unconscious biases manifest in the workplace. Advocacy organisations, such as Mothers in Science, are campaigning for awareness. Institutions could support this by incorporating maternity bias in unconscious bias workshops, equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and leadership training. By fostering a more nuanced understanding of the inequities linked to motherhood, we can prevent the perpetuation of these biases.
- Spotlight guide: Opening doors to greater diversity in STEM
- Stop excluding carers! Eight ways to create an inclusive research culture
- Inclusivity versus devotion to the cult of STEM
Encourage sponsorship
Professional support in the form of mentoring, coaching or sponsorship is instrumental in academic career development.
Personal sponsorship, whereby a person uses their professional standing to vouch for an individual, is a powerful tool for supporting mothers in academia. Personal sponsorship means advocating for someone behind closed doors. This could look like putting them forward for a high-profile career opportunity or helping to establish institutional support for a funding application. A personal sponsor could be a line manager, group leader or head of department.
Sponsorship differs from mentorship in that a sponsor actively champions the career growth of the person they sponsor, while mentoring focuses on sharing experience for professional development. Because sponsorship is less visible than mentorship, institutions must raise awareness of the process and its potential impact on academic career progression to encourage participation.
Increase financial literacy
Career progression in research increasingly requires individuals to bootstrap their careers by overworking for a decade (or more) in fixed-term contracts. For many, this follows the accumulation of considerable debt during the undergraduate and postgraduate periods. Then, as mothers are particularly likely to face career breaks and take on part-time work, they earn less over time. This means that maintaining a research career can become not just logistically challenging but financially unsustainable.
Many corporations train their staff in financial literacy, and there is a strong business case for universities to do the same to help employees to navigate the increasingly inevitable periods of unemployment or reduced income needed to maintain a research career. Other forms of financial support could include transparent and non-competitive bridging funding, encouraging salary-based negotiations and enabling non-linear and part-time career progression through skills-based promotion criteria.
Calls to diversify STEM sectors should come with routes to equity for women who choose to balance their careers with motherhood. By tackling maternity bias head-on, increasing awareness around sponsorship and equipping mothers with financial literacy, institutions can help address the leaky pipeline.
Rachel James is a researcher, formerly at the University of Edinburgh.
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