Gender and Workforce Studies

Several recent articles and studies on gender and the workforce draw attention to some key trends for women in the chemical enterprise.

“Is the Gap More Than Gender? A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Gender Role Orientation, and Earnings”, a study recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, has received a lot of attention for its findings.  The purpose of the study was to determine what factors are predictors of gender role orientation, or the beliefs that individuals hold about the appropriate roles for men and women at work and home.  These beliefs can range from traditional, where women should fulfill a family role and men should fulfill a work role, to egalitarian, where gender roles should be balanced at work and home.  The researchers also sought to determine if gender role views affect earnings. 

Study participants were a subset of a longitudinal panel study by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Participants, interviewed four times over a twenty-five year span, were asked questions to measure the degree to which they endorse traditional versus egalitarian views.  Participants responded on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree on five items concerning the employment of women outside the home and its relationship to factors such as a woman’s happiness and juvenile delinquency.  Participants were also asked about factors such as gender, age, race, years of education, region of U.S. residence, and job complexity. 

The study found that men who hold traditional gender views earn more money than men who don’t whereas the reverse is true for women – those who hold traditional gender views earn less money than women who don’t.  Controlling for job complexity, education, and number of hours worked, the study found that men who hold traditional gender role views make an average of $8,500 more annually than men who hold less traditional views; for women, those with less traditional views make on average about $1,500 more annually than those with more traditional views.

The study also found associations between gender role attitudes and variables such as age and region of U.S. residence.  As the researchers hypothesized, women have less traditional views of gender roles as do African Americans, those with more education, those with more complex jobs, those who live in the Northeast, and those who live in cities.  Not supporting the researchers’ hypothesis, the education of the participants’ mothers did not correlate to their gender role views.

Since some of the predictors for more egalitarian gender role views could be associated with chemical professionals – more years of education, greater job complexity, and greater general mental ability – one might want to hope that gender inequality isn’t an issue in the chemical enterprise.

“Academic Salaries” in the July 14 edition of Chemical & Engineering News did indeed find that gender is no longer a major factor in faculty salaries at bachelor’s- and master’s-granting schools.  The article summarized the results of the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) survey of the economic status of the academic profession in 2007-08. While a larger gap exists at PhD-granting schools, it may be attribution to women faculty being younger than male faculty.  The latest employment survey of American Chemical Society members in the domestic workforce shows similar data with women’s average salaries at about 90% of men’s salaries.

While salary data for chemists in academia are promising, one shouldn’t feel at ease about the status of women in chemistry.  Alarming trends still exist.  “Academic Salaries” makes mention of one - that relatively fewer women are full professors.  Chemistry falls particularly short.  While the AAUP survey found that 26% percent of full professors are women, the ACS survey found that 16% of full professors are women.  This problem is not isolated to academia; the underrepresentation of women in senior-level positions is a persistent problem in all sectors of the chemical enterprise. 

“Women in Industry” published in the August 11 issue of Chemical & Engineering News highlights the results of C&EN’s annual survey of women serving as company executives and directors.  The survey showed that there has been little change in the advancement of women in the upper corporate ranks of chemical companies. The survey of 42 publicly-traded U.S. chemical companies shows a modest increase from 2007 in the percentage of female directors from 2007, but is still lower than the 2003 percentage.  Perhaps more alarming is the decrease from the 2007 survey in the percentage of women serving as top executives.  Of the surveyed companies, nine have no women serving on their board of directors, five have no women directors or executive officers, and none are led by a female chief executive officer.

The lack of women in senior positions in academia may be due, in part, to the fact that women leave at higher rates than men, the “leaky pipeline” effect.  “Gender and Science”, published in the European Molecular Biology Organization Reports, shares the results of a survey of two large European research networks which sought to investigate job-related perceptions and motivations to complement data on the exodus of women from scientific careers.  The study found that traditional gender roles play a part in this phenomenon.  An online questionnaire based on sociological criteria confirmed that women sacrifice professional ambitions to raise children.  Women pay a professional price for assuming the traditional caregiver role.  The majority of both men and women surveyed responded that childcare is difficult to combine with a scientific career.  Gender-attributed behaviors were also a factor.  Over half of the women surveyed responded that women don’t reach higher levels because they are less willing to assume the competitive behaviors characteristic of males.  About three-fourths of the women felt that “research is ruled by men” compared to about half of the men.  About one-third of the men and over three-fourths of the women participants believe that women are too often assigned to administrative or subordinate roles.  The researchers aren’t sure whether the large discrepancies in the perceptions of men and women should be attributed to a limited ability to perceive inequalities or a reluctance to admit that inequalities exist

The recent articles are an important reminder of the inequalities that women scientists still face.  The Women Chemists Committee serves an ever-vital mission of attracting, developing, and promoting women in the chemical sciences and related disciplines.

-Katherine Hoffman, WCC Staff Liaison