Female Faculty and Family Friendliness

Mary Ann Mason at Science Progress says that the US is not doing enough to retain female tenure-track scientists. The University of California, Berkeley, Law School professor and her colleagues show that "the leak is predominantly associated with starting a family," she writes. "Across the country married women scientists with young children who have received their PhDs are 35 percent less likely to enter a tenure-track position than married men with young children," she notes, adding that 43 percent of the 62 universities her team surveyed "provided no, very limited, or ad hoc leave policies for graduate student mothers and only 13 percent offered a baselines of at least six weeks of guaranteed paid leave without limitations that prohibit access to it." Mason suggests that "our current inadequate benefiting of America's researchers makes no economic sense," and that the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act could provide the means for "universities and federal agencies to work together on a baseline of family responsive policies for graduate students, postdoctoral academic researchers, and faculty," she writes.