Women lead nearly half of US households, yet still lag behind in science

The role of women in the workplace is a perennial topic of discussion as we collectively aspire to the ideal of gender equality. I'd like to juxtapose two interesting trends about women in the US that seem to be much-discussed this year.  The first is a study released this week by the Pew Research Center that has been grabbing headlines with the finding that 40% of households with children under the age of 18 have women as the top earner.  These so-called "breadwinner moms" break down into two distinct categories: those who out-earn their husbands, and those who are single parents. The former (37%) are affluent, well-educated and mostly white, while the latter (67%) tend to earn less, are less likely to be college educated, and mostly non-white.

Now let those numbers stew for a moment, while you consider another set of facts.

The US National Science Foundation finds that, while women earn around 50% of the doctorates in science and engineering, they comprise only 21% and 5% of full professors in science and engineering respectively, as reported in a special section of the journal Nature earlier this year.

Let's combine these two pictures.

Nearly 3 out of 4 adults surveyed in the Pew study said the growing number of working mothers made it harder for families to raise children.  In science, the overlap between a woman's reproductive years and those critical to career advancement (graduate school, postdoc) are responsible for a dramatic decline in the number of women who even apply for faculty positions. Women were much more likely than men to decide against careers as research faculty if they planned to have children, or already had them, during their postdoc (28-41% vs. 17%-20% respectively). From personal observation, the worst scenario seems to be for academic couples who often have to struggle to find jobs in the same city let alone the same institution (while dual-hires do occur, it's far from guaranteed however family-friendly the institution). Meanwhile, the gender gap in science is pervasive and grows as one looks at successively higher levels: women receive less funding on average, are much less likely to be asked to serve on scientific advisory boards, and less likely to hold positions at successively higher ranks within academia. Is it any surprise then that many women simply opt out, or are forced to?

What gives?

Well, of course it seems that women have to sail against headwinds of bias that are encultured in both genders at a very young age that positions of leadership and power are masculin. Scientists of both sexes tend to judge females more harshly than males (where do you stand? Try the Implicit Association Test). This applies both inside and outside science, since the flipside of the Pew data is that men are still by and large the dominant wage earners (how many single dads out there and how much are they earning, I'd like to know?). If you do the math, it means that in households with kids under the age of 18 just under 15% of them are headed up by women who are out-earning their husbands despite the increasing fraction that are getting college or even graduate degrees.  This is not news.

The less examined issue is the model of "success" pursued by the US.

What does it take to be "successful" in science or anything else? What does it take to be in that 15%? If Sheryl Sandberg is your role model, i.e. someone who delights in answering emails at 2 a.m. and being on the go 24-7, then we're in trouble.  Because the imbalance is not just about women, it's about our priorities in life.  Too often, in the US you are expected to "work hard and play hard," but what isn't mentioned is that when you work hard, someone else has to pick up the slack. What these numbers are telling me is that it's still women that are doing the picking up.  This is because it is still more socially acceptable - and indeed expected - that men pursue professional aspirations while women tend to household matters, regardless of whether they both work.  Clearly, in a workplace that is blind to the family circumstances of individuals, one expects that a household in which one partner is wholly devoted to their career and the other chooses to be devoted to raising a family will be more efficient in advancing the professional aspirations of that single professional, than a household in which both must work out compromises in terms of career and family time (or geographic location). Although it doesn't matter in principal which sex does what, these data and what I actively see around me suggest that it's still predominantly women opting to dial back on their careers.

Clearly, the implicit difficulty of balancing family and career stem from the fact that there is an overwhelming social pressure to devote one's life to one's career in order to succeed, and there are very few voices advocating for a more holistic understanding of success for either women OR men. This is why there is a certain degree of backlash against feminism classically construed. Why is it that we're debating whether women can have it all, without asking men the same? How do men feel about working manic hours and sacrificing time with their children in order to make the next deadline, prepare for the next meeting, or meet whatever yardstick of professional achievement is placed before them? It's time to recognize what constitutes a good enough life.

In science as in anything else, it's also easy to see that a competitive environment selects for a certain kind of personality, male or female. The words "energetic," "assertive," and "dominating" come to mind. The same attributes likely influence the outcomes of decisions in households with dual-career couples. To be sure there are women with these attributes, but as I look around my peers I must say they are not in the majority. It's not that women have simply to be asked to join the alpha male success club, but that the nature of the club needs changing. Gender-based social norms run deep, and they are self-reinforcing.

Institutionalizing gender equality means providing paternity as well as maternity leave. And in science, it means recognizing that people of a certain age are mature adults regardless of where they are in their careers - i.e. male and female postdocs should be permitted to fulfill family duties without suffering more than those who have no such cares. Family-friendly policies such as on-site daycare centers and maternity or paternity leave in any workplace are necessary steps to balancing the demands of work and family but they only go so far.

Advancing women, societally, means that we recalibrate our expectations of both sexes.

On Science Serving Society, from a DC Insider

I recently attended a talk by Dr. Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist who was basically in charge of running NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmostpheric Administration) from 2009-2013.  One of the most highly cited ecologists since, well ever, she was part of Obama's 'Dream Team' of science advisors. During those four years, NOAA went from one turbulent challenge to another including the Gulf Oil spill and multiple extreme storm events like hurricane Irene.

Her talk, under the theme of "Science Serving Society" was fascinating in terms of both content and delivery.  There was not a powerpoint in sight, instead she took us to a "field trip" to that strange foreign country known as Washington DC via a series of twelve short stories that illustrated the culture and habits of yonder parts.  I thought I'd share some little nuggets of wisdom here by way of some quotes that stuck:

"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care"  - Referring to the situation of concerned fishermen anxious about their livelihoods following the disastrous Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf. Point: Researchers may harbor a wealth of detailed knowledge, but applying it takes more finesse and the ability to relate to people.

"Wait a minute, I thought you were a scientist...but I just understood everything you said!" - VP Joe Biden to Dr. Lubchenco while being briefed on fisheries in the gulf. Point: Scientists need to think about how well they're communicating. The onus is on us to do it clearly and understandably.

"I don't need to your weather satellites, I've got the weather channel." - Congressman to Dr. Lubchenco, in reference to the ageing fleet of weather satellites that were in orbit at the time. Point: It's easy to forget that others don't know what you know. Though she was gracious about this, to me the fact that this elected official didn't realize that weather reports on TV relied on publicly funded weather satellites set off additional alarm bells at the clear inadequacy of standards we have for holding office.  Just as doctors, accountants, and lawyers have to pass examinations, perhaps politicians should be tested on basic competence.

Paraphrase: Scientists have a contract with the public...Sometimes we academics tend think of students who go outside it as failures.  Instead of writing them off, we actually need to encourage many more to go into policy. Referring to the disconnect between the classic priorities of scientists and needs of both science and society.

"It looks as wholesome as peaches and apple pie...But I think it's a serious threat...and the whole community needs to scream bloody murder if it goes through." - In reference to the so-called "High Quality Research Act (which I blogged about earlier here).

Thanks Dr. Lubchenco, for being such a fabulous female role model and reminding us to step back and look at the big picture.

What's the use of science?

The so-called "High Quality Research Act" proposed by representative Lamar Smith (R-TX), wants research funded by the National Science Foundation to benefit the interests of the United States by advancing "national health, prosperity, or welfare" and securing "national defense by promoting the progress of science". It also wants science to solve problems that are actually important to society while not duplicating research that has already been funded by NSF.   It may seem at first that this proposal by the Chair of the Science, Technology and Space Committee is a noble attempt to hold scientists to high standards and make sure that valuable taxpayer dollars are spent on useful research.  So what's all this fuss about peer review?

Gene patents. The story is still not resolved!

It is hard to believe that almost one year has passed since my last post. That year was very busy, so busy in fact that I did not have any inspiration to read and write anything aside from what is directly relevant to my research. Realizing how Koyaanisqatsi my life has become, I am trying re-balance it.

I just read a small news piece in the journal Science about the ongoing U.S. Supreme Court case on gene patents. Can you believe that this issue is still unresolved? If you are a reasonable person who understands what genes are, I think it is pretty obvious that they cannot be patented. It's like trying to patent, say, "the left lung", or "the red blood cells", or any other part of human organism. It's absurd. Of course, corporations are concerned with one question, and that question is no not whether something is reasonable/ethical/fair/etc or not. The question is about money. If they could make money by patenting the left lung, they certainly would. The only reason they do not do it is because the absurdity of such intention is obvious. Lungs are big. Everybody can feel them. Everybody understands what they are doing. Nobody would accept the idea that their very own lung in their very own chest would by owned by somebody else. At least I hope nobody would! Genes on the other hand are small. Nobody can see them. Very few people really understand what they are doing. So, the absurdity of the statement that somebody would own some part of you is suddenly blurred.

Just so you know, the company that currently owns the patents to BRCA genes, and by doing so has effectively monopolized the market of breast and ovarian cancer testing, is Myriad Inc. The fact that Dr. Walter Gilbert, a Nobel Prize winner in 1980 in chemistry and a Harvard professor, sits on their board of directors and endorses such absurd legal actions is very disappointing.

If you are wondering what kind of arguments can the Myriad attorneys possibly present in favor of patenting genes, here is one:  "isolated" BRCA genes are laboratory products and, unlike chromosomes, they do not occur in nature. By the same logic, "isolated" left lungs are laboratory products and, unlike entire human bodies, do not occur in nature. (Welcome to the world of legal language.)

Good day!

Shermin and I have a number of ongoing themes in our discussions. One of them is about sustainable agriculture and how many people can our planet actually support. The latter question has a caveat of course: the answer depends on which technology one would use for growing food. I would surely think that the Earth would support more people if we grew food using conventional (i.e., not sustainable) methods compared to organic. But how much more? Twice as much? Ten times as much?

A recent paper in the journal Nature called "Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture" (free full version available here) by Seufert, Ramankutty and Jonathan Foley (see his TED talk, by the way) offers some insight into the answers. The paper presents the results of a meta-analysis of comparisons of yields between conventional and organic farms. The main result is that organic farms generally have a lower yield, but how much lower depends on the details. For example, vegetables give about 30% lower yield in organic farms than in conventional farms, whereas fruits give pretty much identical yields. Another interesting observation is that, if one compares farms with "best management practices" (not very well defined what this means though) in both types of farms, organic give about 13% less yield than conventional. So, not bad at all!

One interesting likely explanation for the poorer performance of organic systems is that these systems are nitrogen limited whereas conventional systems are not. This means that, when you increase the input of nitrogen into the organic system (e.g., by dumping more fertilizer), its performance goes up. Not the case for a conventional system. The reason why nitrogen is limiting in organic systems is probably because it is released slower from decaying organic matter than is necessary for plant growth.

In short, this article give some clues as to how to optimize food production and gives some hope that organic systems will in the future be able to provide a large fraction of necessary food supply.

Great talk by Andrew Read about the necessity of understanding how evolution works. Feel good about what I am working on :)

Securing natural capital and expanding equity to rescale civilization

I've just read this article by Paul Ehrlich, Peter Kareiva, and Gretchen Daily, published in Nature on 7 June 2012 (link to the original article). The authors clearly operate on a very high level (i.e., not "on the ground"), and therefore the article offers less concreteness than I would have liked. Nevertheless, here is a brief "lazy-man" summary of what I found interesting.

The main premise is: We need to do something soon

It is clear that the human population size and consumption patterns are well above what Earth could support without impairment of vital life-support systems. Population projections suggest that the world will have about 9.5 billion people in 2050 and slightly over 10 billion in 2100.

The authors offer several potential solutions, but only two of them are concrete

1. Make means of contraception accessible in developing countries. One important win–win way to reduce fertility rates is by meeting the ‘unmet need’ for contraception; that is, by supplying safe, modern means to those who do not want a child in the next two years of their lives but are not using any means of birth control. In 53 Asian, African and Latin American countries between 1995 and 2005, an estimated 7–15% of women have an unmet need for contraception. In sub-Saharan Africa, the region where unmet need is greatest, the estimate is about 25% of married women. There are roughly 75 million unintended pregnancies in the world annually and almost half of them end in abortion. Making reproduction education and family planning universally available in the developing world could avert 20 million or more births annually, avoid over 25 million abortions, reduce maternal mortality by 25–40%, and greatly reduce the population growth rate.

2. Educate women. A second win–win way to reduce fertility rates is to raise levels of education, especially of young women. If there were a crash program of education globally, there would be roughly a billion fewer people in 2050 than if there were no effort to keep educational investment commensurate with population size. Although education and subsequent empowerment of women lowers infant and childhood mortality, this effect  is more than offset demographically by the associated growing desire and ability to have fewer children.

Studies of community-based conservation reveal that the more women are involved in local governance, the more effective forest protection and compliance with regulations. This means that women need to be explicitly targeted when designing strategies for promoting conservation and reducing environmental degradation.

I liked the concluding encouragement note

Rapid change has occurred enough times in human history in relation to fundamental aspects of culture to give hope that such change can be triggered now. One need only consider the advances in women’s rights of the past century, the transformation of the racial situation in the United States such that an African American can be elected President, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, to see that cultural change does not necessarily proceed at a glacial pace. And, just as climate change is speeding the flow of glaciers, it should speed the transition of the human enterprise towards a sustainable scale—at which care for all human beings and the natural capital upon which they depend is at the top of the political agenda. The choice seems stark and clear enough: rescaling or global bust.