For many scientists, the doctoral and postdoctoral career phase coincides with the time of family formation. A survey across all campuses revealed that approx. 13% of PhD students and 25% of postdocs in the UC system have children, whereas the proportion of PhD students and postdocs who have children is higher among men than women. Based on a recently published longitudinal study by Cech and Blair-Loy (PNAS 2019), in the U.S. nearly half of all women in STEM leave their full-time position after having children, whereas less than one-quarter of new fathers leave their full-time STEM employment. Thus, parenthood is an important driver of gender imbalance in STEM employment. Importantly, 12% of new mothers stay employed full-time but leave STEM-related jobs highlighting the difficulty in balancing STEM work with caregiving responsibilities. Additionally, maternity leave is a major reason why women have fewer publications compared to their male counterparts (Resmini et al., Chemistry 2016). Therefore it is not surprising that female postdocs with children are significantly less likely than men and women without children to get a tenure-track faculty position. In addition, other factors like cultural expectations can drive women out of full-time work in STEM (Ysseldyk et al., Frontiers in psychology 2019). As a result, women often consider having children as a crucial component of their career planning with almost half of all female scientists having fewer children than desired in order to maintain their career (Ecklund and Lincoln, PLOS ONE 2011).

Being part of the Professors for the Future Program allowed me to work towards improving conditions for parents in STEM and to find new solutions for how to combine having a family while being a successful scientist.

Link to the newspaper article: https://theaggie.org/2021/04/16/workshop-fosters-solidarity-among-student-parents-strives-to-retain-women-with-children-in-the-academic-pipeline/

At the University of Groningen, the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) networking group offers mentorship and everybody is welcome to come to the monthly meetings! If you are interested you can find more information here: https://www.rug.nl/fse/wise/