Is the gender pay gap closing in the sciences? We intend to find out what’s been done

Professor Lesley Yellowlees outlines the scope of a new review

The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) has decided to review its 2012 report on the progress and retention of talented women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). This report recognised that only around 27 per cent of women qualified in these fields continued to work in them. The comparable figure for men is 52 per cent.

Even in scientific disciplines where women were well represented at graduate and post-graduate level, the proportion reaching the most senior levels in their profession was well below that of their male colleagues.

Of course, there can be positive reasons for people with STEM qualifications moving into different career paths, but the gap between men and women at the most senior levels cannot be explained by other than inherent gender inequalities in the labour market.

The analysis of the 2012 working group, co-chaired by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell (the current RSE president and world-renowned astrophysicist) and Professor Alice Brown (former vice principal of the University of Edinburgh), was that this represented both a loss of opportunity for many talented female scientists and a loss to the economy and society of Scotland.

At the time, the estimated loss to the UK economy was estimated at about £2 billion per annum, around £170 million in Scotland.

We made a range of recommendations at the time, to the UK and Scot- tish Governments, public bodies and the private sector, to try to address this loss of talented women.

Among the recommendations were that the Scottish Government introduce a national strategy, aimed at retaining and promoting women in STEM and the UK Government should extend parental leave legislation to recognise the responsibilities of mothers and fathers.

It was also recommended that business should address job design to provide quality flexible employment at all levels for men and women; funders of universities and research should use the influence of their funding to encourage universities to achieve recognition through the Athena Swan programme, which promotes gender equality in high- er education and research, and that national academies, learned and professional bodies should seek to lead by example.

The RSE, along with members of the Young Academy of Scotland, has now decided to review what progress has been made since 2012. I have been asked to chair the review group.

I am sure that there has been progress: increasingly women are being appointed to leading roles in the community of national academies and learned societies, including both the current and next presidents of the RSE, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Anne Glover.

I was honoured to be the president of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) from 2012 to 2014 and the next president-elect of the RSC is Carol

Robinson – due to take the post up in the summer of this year.

Progress has also been made in the academic sector with many universities in Scotland either achieving Athena Swan accreditation for the first time, or for more of their STEM departments.

Much progress remains to be made. The gender pay gap persists more than 40 years on from the Equal Pay Act. In my view, among other things, we need to consider further what the situation is in the business and industrial sector and review the impact of the Athena Swan programme on progress in our universities.

We should also review how parental (or other family) leave is best shared; monitor how women (and men) are supported back into their careers after breaks; and consider the most up to date economic analysis of not maximising the potential of talented female scientists.

We will also consider aspects that we didn’t look at in detail in our original report, such as the continuing under representation of young women in some STEM subjects at school level – physics, computing science and engineering in particular.

The lack of women in these disciplines clearly also influences the career-long pay gap. How do we encourage more young women to consider studying these subjects in the first place?

Our work will begin shortly and we will be issuing a call for evidence. We want to hear from the business community, academics, trade unions, the third sector and anyone in Scotland who has an informed contribution to make. We will make this call in the next few weeks. Professor Lesley Yellowlees CBE FRSC FRSE, Royal Society of Edinburgh.