Factors Affecting the Career Choices of Graduate Chemists

The Government stated in its White Paper Realising our Potential that women are the country's biggest, single most under-valued and, therefore, under-used human resource.

Although the number of women in science and engineering is rising, the fact remains that at higher levels the proportion of women is very small. What is true for science and engineering in general is true for chemistry in particular and in some ways the chemistry situation is amongst the worst. Whilst the proportion of women taking chemistry as a first degree subject is rising and now stands at around 37 per cent, less than 1 per cent of chemistry professors are female. Only civil engineering has a lower proportion of female professors. Furthermore, the drop-off in the proportion of women in chemistry is amongst the worse.

At her first meeting as Chairman of the RSC's Scientific Affairs Board, Professor Julia Higgins, a Chemical Engineer at Imperial College, raised the question of why there were so few women in senior academic posts in chemistry.

Preliminary analyses of Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data suggested that whilst the proportions of women taking chemistry at university at first degree and PhD level were similar, a significantly lower proportion of women went on to post-doctoral work compared with their male counterparts.

The RSC decided to investigate this finding further and commissioned Evaluation Associates Limited to convene a series of single sex focus groups to identify "Factors Affecting the Career Choices of Graduate Chemists".

The findings from the focus groups, together with analyses of statistical data, are available in the full report. Although focus groups, by their very nature, can only reflect the view of a small sample of people, the RSC saw them as an effective way of identifying issues that might be important in career choice.

Professor Julia Higgins, when commenting about the report, said: 

"I have been concerned for several years about the disappearing female chemists in our Universities and I warmly welcome this report which looks at the progress of female PhD students through to academic staff, and indicates ways of improving the situation."

A summary article published in the March 2000 issue of Chemistry in Britain is also available, together with a comment from Tom Inch, the Secretary General of the RSC.

Some of the issues raised may be specific to chemistry but many are equally applicable to other science and engineering disciplines, and some to all university subjects.

The RSC would like to hear your comments and thoughts on the report. If you have something to say, please contact us.