Trained Scientific Women Power: How Much are we Losing and Why?

Given the fact that most of them live in nuclear
families, the absence of organized support
mechanisms especially when the children are
younger could be one of the reasons for women not
pursuing a career in Science. (Details regarding
children is given in Appendix II, tables 13 and 14).
Interesting differences are seen with respect to age
of children for women across the different cohorts.
Among younger women (below 40 years), the highest
proportion of the group have children between 0 – 5
years (48.4 per cent). The highest proportion of
women between 40-50 years reported having
children between 5 -15 years (65 per cent). More
importantly, a significantly higher proportion of WNW
have younger children between 0-5 years in both
age groups, below 40 years (57.1 per cent WNW
compared to 47.8 per cent WIR and 45.3 per cent
WNR) as well as between 40-50 years (17.6 per
cent compared to 5.2 per cent WIR and 8.8 per
cent WNR). Data on help with childcare * also shows
that highest majority of women in the WNW groups
have reported that they received no additional
help with childcare/ did not work when the child
was growing up (28 per cent), compared to only
2.8 per cent WIR and 4.5 per cent of WNR who
have reported the same. The largest majority of WIR
have reported receiving help from their family for
childcare (25.8 per cent) while the largest majority
of WNR have reported help from husband’s family
for childcare (34.2 per cent). (Refer Appendix II,
table 16 for details).
One in every five women scientists surveyed had
their child/children * during their studies. Although
the variation within the groups is not very large, the
WIR sub-group reported the highest per cent (23.6),
followed closely by WNR (21.6 per cent). Nearly
10 per cent of the women scientists had their child
during their jobs in junior positions. An equal
number of women scientists had their children after
a PhD before taking up a job. It will be useful to
analyze the experiences of women who have been
able to balance their studies with marriage and
children as much as those women who had their
children when they were working. The need for this
is not so much to undermine their success as
scientists but to help women scientists who may
believe that this balance is difficult or, for that matter,
not possible. When the comparison between
WIR and MIR sub-groups with regard to
timing of having children were made, there
was a significant difference at 0.01 level
between these groups. 57.7 per cent MIR reported
having children after PhD, as against 42.2 per cent
WIR reporting the same.
A majority of the women in all three groups have
also reported taking only minimum maternity break
for children. The data revealed that the highest per
cent of WIR (76.4 per cent) had minimum maternity
breaks followed by the WNR (64 per cent). Only
one in every two WNW reported having taken a
minimum maternity break (50.7 per cent).
Finally, with respect to time spent on work, while
children were growing up, the groups significantly
differed. WIR reported spending between 40 – 60
hours per week at work (46.8 per cent). Equal
proportions of WNR have reported spending either
between 60-70 hours or 20-40 hours per week
at work (24.7 per cent and 23.7 per cent
respectively). Nearly two-fifths of the WNW groups
have chosen the not applicable option. This may
either indicate an unwillingness to respond to the
question or having not worked when children were
growing up. However, since a much higher number
of women have used this option compared to the
other two groups, it may perhaps indicate that many
of them did not work while children were growing
up. The second largest proportion of the group
reported working for 40-60 hours per week (27.0
per cent). (Refer Appendix II, table 15 for details).
The sub-groups of women scientists significantly
differed with respect to time spent at work when
children were growing up. The chi square value
is significant at the 0.01 level (X 2 = 138.066,
p = 0.000, p