ChapterPDF Available

Is the Gender Gap Narrowing in Science and Engineering?

February 2018

Authors:

Sophia Huyer

WISAT

.2: Share of female tertiary graduates in four selected fields, 2013 or closest year (%)

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Share of women in selected South African institutions, 2011(%)

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The leaky pipeline: share of women in higher education and research, 2013 (%)

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.1: Female researchers by field of science, 2013 or closest year (%)

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Figures - uploaded by Sophia Huyer

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by Sophia Huyer

Content may be subject to copyright.

UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

Gender equality will encourage

new solutions and expand the

scope of research; it should be

considered a priority by all if

the global community is serious

about reaching the next set of

development goals.

Sophia Huyer

Professor Deborah Jin from the University

of Colorado (USA) was the first to succeed in

cooling down molecules to such an extent

that chemical reactions could be observed in

slow motion. Dr Jin was the L’Oréal–UNESCO

laureate for North America in 2013.

Photo: © Julian Dufort for the L’Oréal Foundation

Chapter 3

INTRODUCTION

Women underrepresented in decision-making on

climate change

As the global community prepares to make the transition

from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable

Development Goals in 2015, it is turning its attention from

a focus on poverty reduction to a broader perspective

combining socio-economic and environmental priorities.

Over the next 15 years, scientific research will play a key role

in monitoring relevant trends in such areas as food security,

health, water and sanitation, energy, the management of

ocean and terrestrial ecosystems and climate change. Women

will play an essential role in implementing the Sustainable

Development Goals, by helping to identify global problems

and find solutions.

Since men tend to enjoy a higher socio-economic status,

women are disproportionately affected by droughts, floods

and other extreme weather events and marginalized when

it comes to making decisions on recovery and adaptation

(EIGE, 2012). Some economic sectors will be strongly affected

by climate change but women and men will not necessarily

be affected in the same way. In the tourism sector, for

instance, women in developing countries tend to earn

less than their male counterparts and occupy fewer

managerial positions. They are also overrepresented in the

non-agricultural informal sector: 84% in sub-Saharan Africa,

86% in Asia and 58% in Latin America (WTO and UN Women,

2011). There are, thus, clear gender differences in the ability to

cope with climate-change-induced shocks.

Despite these gender differences, women are not represented

equally in the key climate-change related sectors of science

as skilled workers, professionals or decision-makers. Although

they are fairly well represented in some related science

disciplines – including health, agriculture and environmental

management – they are very much a minority in other

fields that will be vital for the transition to sustainable

development, such as energy, engineering, transportation,

information technology (IT) and computing – the latter being

important for warning systems, information-sharing and

environmental monitoring.

Even in those scientific fields where women are present, they

are underrepresented in policy-making and programming.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a case in point.

In this country, women are well-represented in governmental

decision-making structures related to climate change, such as

energy and transportation, environment and health services.

They are also comparatively well-represented in related

scientific disciplines. Many of them serve on the National

Climate Change Committee. However, when it comes to

designing and implementing plans, interpreting decisions

and monitoring results, women are a rare commodity

(Huyer, 2014).

TRENDS IN RESEARCH

Gender parity remains elusive among researchers

When it comes to women’s participation in research

overall, globally, we are seeing a leaky pipeline. Women are

actively pursuing bachelor’s and master’s degrees and even

outnumber men at these levels, since they represent 53% of

graduates, but their numbers drop off abruptly at PhD level.

Suddenly, male graduates (57%) overtake women (Figure 3.1).

The discrepancy widens at the researcher level, with men now

representing 72% of the global pool. The high proportion

of women in tertiary education is, thus, not necessarily

translating into a greater presence in research.

Although women account for just 28%1 of global researchers,

according to available data, this figure masks wide variations

at both the national and regional levels (Figure 3.2). Women

are highly represented in Southeast Europe (49%), for

instance, and in the Caribbean, Central Asia and Latin America

(44%). One in three researchers is a woman in the Arab

States (37%), the European Union (33%) and the European

Free Trade Association (34%), which are closely followed by

sub-Saharan Africa (30%).

For many regions, gender parity (45–55% of researchers) is

a legacy of the former Soviet bloc, which stretched across

Central Asia, the Baltic States and Eastern Europe to Southeast

Europe. One-third of the member states of the European

Union (EU) today were once part of the Soviet bloc. Over

the past decade, several Southeast European countries have

managed to recover the gender parity in research that they

had lost in the 1990s following the break-up of the former

Yugoslavia: Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia

(see Table 10.4).

1. This estimate by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics for 137 countries excludes

North America, owing to the international incomparability of these data. The global

share of female researchers would not rise more than a few percentage points,

however, even if the share of female researchers in the USA could be included in

the calculation. Hypothetically, a 40% share of female researchers in the USA would

push the global share up from 28.4% to 30.7%.

3 . Is the gender gap narrowing in science

and engineering?

Sophia Huyer

UNESCO SCIENCE REPORT

Countries in other regions have made great strides. In Asia,

Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have all achieved

gender parity (see Figure 27.6) and, in Africa, Namibia and

South Africa are on the verge of joining this select club (see

Figure 19.3). The countries with the highest proportion of

female researchers are Bolivia (63%) and Venezuela (56%).

Lesotho has slipped out of this category after experiencing a

precipitous drop from 76% to 31% between 2002 and 2011.

Some high-income countries have a surprisingly low proportion

of female researchers. Just one in four researchers is a woman in

France, Germany and the Netherlands, for instance. Even lower

proportions are to be found in the Republic of Korea (18%) and

Japan (15%). Despite the government’s efforts to improve this

ratio (see Chapter 24), Japan still has the lowest proportion

of female researchers of any member of the Organisation for

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The lowest participation rate of all comes from Saudi Arabia:

1.4% (see Figure 17.7), down from 18.1% in 2000. However,

this figure only covers the King Abdulaziz City for Science and

Technology. Participation is also very low in Togo (10%) and

Ethiopia (13%) and has almost halved in Nepal since 2002

from 15% to 8% (see Figure 21.7).

The glass ceiling still intact

Each step up the ladder of the scientific research system sees

a drop in female participation until, at the highest echelons

of scientific research and decision-making, there are very

few women left. In 2015, the EU Commissioner for Research,

Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas called attention to this

phenomenon, adding that the majority of entrepreneurs in

science and engineering tended to be men. In Germany, the

coalition agreement signed in 2013 introduces a 30% quota

for women on company boards of directors (see Chapter 9).

Although data for most countries are limited, we know

that women made up 14% of university chancellors and

vice-chancellors at Brazilian public universities in 2010

(Abreu, 2011) and 17% of those in South Africa in 2011

(Figure 3.3). In Argentina, women make up 16% of directors

and vice-directors of national research centres (Bonder, 2015)

and, in Mexico, 10% of directors of scientific research institutes

at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. In the USA,

numbers are slightly higher at 23% (Huyer and Hafkin, 2012).

In the EU, less than 16% of tertiary institutions were headed by

a woman in 2010 and just 10% of universities (EU, 2013). At the

main tertiary institution for the English-speaking Caribbean, the

University of the West Indies, women represented 51% of

lecturers but only 32% of senior lecturers and 26% of full

professors in 2011 (Figure 16.7). Two reviews of national

academies of science produce similarly low numbers, with

women accounting for more than 25% of members in only a

handful of countries, including Cuba, Panama and South Africa.

Indonesia deserves an honorary mention at 17% (Henry, 2015;

Zubieta, 2015; Huyer and Hafkin, 2012).

Figure 3.1: The leaky pipeline: share of women in higher education and research, 2013 (%)

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates based on data from its database, July 2015

Female bachelor’s

graduates

Female master’s

graduates

Female PhD

graduates