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Walking through the Leaky Academic Pipeline in STEM: Equity not Equality Needed for Women and under Represented Minorities (URMs)

Written By

Dwight Figueiredo

Submitted: 06 October 2022 Reviewed: 06 April 2023 Published: 09 May 2023

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.111538

Gender Inequality - Issues, Challenges and New Perspectives IntechOpen
Gender Inequality - Issues, Challenges and New Perspectives Edited by Feyza Bhatti

From the Edited Volume

Gender Inequality - Issues, Challenges and New Perspectives [Working Title]

Associate Prof. Feyza Bhatti and Dr. Elham Taheri

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Abstract

Previous studies have shown STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines to have low representation by women and certain minorities (i.e. gender, race and ethnic minorities). Higher up the academic ladder, the higher the gap in parity between the majority and minority groups in STEM suggesting a leaky pipeline caused due to higher attrition of women and minorities. Prevailing conscious as well as subconscious gender-science stereotypes, lack of sense of belonging towards male-dominated STEM disciplines, hostile campus environments and negative student-faculty interactions, lack of diversity in the academic hiring process and in journal editorial committees and understanding of academic metrics are to be considered when hiring minorities play a role in establishing and maintaining the leaky academic pipeline. Women & URMs tend to possess significant homophily in academic networks and collaborations impacting scientific productivity and quality recently exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 lead to lower initiation of new projects—particularly faced by minorities groups in STEM—thereby possibly impacting productivity for years to come. Proposals for making STEM education and jobs more equitable need to be formulated and taken up as a priority if science and its wide-reaching impacts have to truly serve all people.

Keywords

  • gender equity
  • racial equity
  • diversity
  • URMs
  • inclusivity
  • STEM
  • homophily
  • science-gender stereotypes

1. Introduction

There is growing evidence that women and minorities are underrepresented in various STEM educational fields and in the STEM related workforce [1, 2, 3]. However, all STEM disciplines are not equivalent in terms of gender and minority representation, with some being at parity while some being highly underrepresented- for e.g. gender representation in the Health and Life Sciences disciplines are at parity compared to representation in physical sciences, mathematics, computer sciences & engineering having high gender gaps [3, 4, 5].

These differences are even more pronounced when we consider senior jobs/positions higher up the academic ladder in STEM fields- posts of associate professor, professor, dean, and departmental chair in various departments and research intensive institutes [6, 7]. The reasons for the surprisingly low numbers of women and minorities in these positions of scientific credibility and stature are being investigated, given that there is a relatively higher percentage of women and minorities that graduate and enter into junior academic ranks/posts (i.e. research associate, assistant professors etc.) in those very same disciplines. Many studies have proposed a leaky pipeline model suggesting that there are many points along the academic tenure track route at which women and minorities drop out of STEM fields [8]. Interestingly, many studies have cited possible explanations for such high attrition rates out of academia, and some have even called for change at the institutional policy and government and international scientific governing body level [9, 10, 11, 12, 13]. However, the practicality and feasibility of implementing these strategies in the current male indoctrinated scientific environment remains to be understood.

The good part is that scientists, scientific governing bodies, academic teaching and research institutions/organizations, publishing houses and scientific review boards are starting to recognize such disparities and implement policy changes at different levels to mitigate such systemic bias against minorities [14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. Online social media campaigns such as ‘Black in Neuro’ and ‘Black in Immunology’ week have made people aware of the minority black community within their fraternity [19, 20, 21, 22, 23]. These campaigns also serve to highlight contributions made in the field that often go unrecognized, and to encourage providing more favorable space for such isolated voiceless communities in scientific workspaces.

Given that such recognition is happening at various levels, it is important for decision making administrative bodies to make sustainable decisions in every sphere based on rigorous high quality data. This will ensure a slow sustainable change that will rout out systemic racism but at the same time will also maintain and facilitate high quality and innovative cutting-edge research. Keeping this in mind, in this book chapter, we plan to review studies that have focused their questions on minority representation in STEM education, research, related jobs in academia, productivity, and various systemic barriers and possible facilitators that affect minority groups in STEM. Portraying such data in an unbiased and accurate manner would help tackle the issues at the roots of such problems keeping away unnecessary favoritism that could ruin the competitive streak existing in STEM.

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2. Selection of studies

The following search terms were used in different combinations in ‘Google scholar’, Pubmed (Medline), preprints and grey literature sources to identify articles related to the topic: Gender Inequality, Gender Inequity, Gender Equity, Racial Inequity, Under Represented Minorities (URMs), STEM, Science Technology Engineering and Maths, Gender bias, Women in STEM, Pay Gap, Leaky Pipeline in STEM, Racial Discrimination, Ethnic Minorities, COVID-19, Homophily, Sense of Belonging, and Gender-Science Stereotypes. Studies were identified based on search strings generated from different combination of search terms pertaining to each of the following areas: Inequalities in STEM education: Gender and Ethnicity (Gender Science Stereotypes: Implicit and Explicit perception, Retention in STEM: Sense of belonging); STEM workplaces & education: A hostile climate for minorities (Racial Microaggressions (RMAs), Student-faculty relationships: Race and gender differences); Recruitment to academic positions: Minorities underrepresented; Gap in pay for equal work: Minorities bear the brunt; Need for diversity at the top: highlighting the need for editorial board diversity; Women and URMs at the top- winds of change; Homophily among collaborative networks: A barrier to impact, diversity and productivity; Covid-19: its impact on the productivity and attrition rates in STEM- Analysis of the groups most affected; and Suggestions to encourage women and minority groups to access STEM education and remain in the academic pipeline. Documents were screened using abstracts and primary studies (studies that collected and analyzed data) pertaining to the above headings((abstracts were screened) were included in the review. No reviews (qualitative or quantitative meta-analysis) were considered for analysis, however back-referencing of reviews were carried out to further identify articles pertaining to the 10 included domains.

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3. Inequalities in STEM education: gender and ethnicity

3.1 Gender science stereotypes: lmplicit and explicit perception

Many large scale bibliometric studies have shown that there are gaps in numbers as well as highlighted the possible mechanisms responsible for such gaps in many fields in STEM education that persist until today. These differences could be attributed to varying underlying factors which could be location and context specific. A cross sectional study of 4, 93,495 students (2 major international datasets- 2003 trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, and the Programme for International Student Assessment) analyzing gender differences in mathematics achievements, attitudes and affect revealed that boys have a more positive attitude and affect towards mathematics but there is no significant difference between mathematical achievement scores between sexes (Mean effect sizes d < 0.15). High country wise variability in this study could be attributed to powerful predictors of cross-national variability in gender gaps in math such as equity in school enrollment, women’s parliamentary representation, and women’s share of research jobs [24]. Similarly, a study of 35,000 participants in 66 nations (involving the same data sets as the study above [24]) provided evidence that increased female enrollment in tertiary science education was related to weaker (implicit and explicit) national gender science stereotypes. Increased women’s employment in the research workforce leads to weaker explicit but not implicit gender stereotypes. Interestingly, implicit gender science stereotypes persisted in college educated participants [25]. A cross-sectional study among 1364 Swiss students investigating the masculinity image of chemistry, physics and mathematics has revealed that these subjects have a predominant masculinity attribution, both among female as well as male secondary school students. Interestingly, students who were studying in non-STEM subjects showed greater masculinity attribution to these science subjects. Moreover, these attributions as male dominated subjects have potential impacts on STEM major career aspirations among these students- the more pronounced the masculine image attributed to a subject; the less likely would be the aspirations to major in that subject, particularly among female students [26].

3.2 Retention in STEM: sense of belonging

Sense of belonging is also a crucial aspect that has been shown to influence decision making with regards to choosing STEM subjects as a major in college. Evidence pointed out that women of color were the least likely to experience this sense of belonging in STEM disciplines, with sub-discipline representation having an impact. This study reported that sense of belonging was significantly influenced by personal interest, science identity, interpersonal relationships, and perceived competence [27]. Studies in Computer Science revealed that sense of belonging affected minority students’ interest to pursue CS courses and negative correlated with regards to course outcomes in terms of pass rates and course performance. These studies are of relevance for informing the necessary changes for addressing self identified minority students with a lower sense of belonging [28, 29, 30]. Another study using visual narratives and item response theory to quantify sense of belonging in a research-focused STEM department further provided evidence that graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who identify as underrepresented were less likely to experience a sense of belonging [31].

In conclusion these studies point to the fact that girls/women in particular have preconceived notions regarding choice of subjects and career aspirations in STEM based on prevailing cultural-gender stereotypes. Ironically these cultural-gender stereotypes have been built in by society and are not based on intellectual ability, capability, suitability or productivity which has been shown to be not significantly different in a number of studies. However, these science gender stereotypes are hard-wired and culturally ingrained, leading to its implicit as well as explicit expression within the community, which would require persistent systemic and individual efforts to undermine it.

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4. STEM workplaces and education: a hostile climate for minorities

Studies have shown that sexual harassment, discrimination, and micro-aggressions in women and minority groups are prevalent and reported with high level of variability among different minority STEM student populations [32, 33, 34, 35]. In recent years much attention has been drawn towards sexual harassment and misconduct particularly on college campuses leading to deterrent policies being implemented at all levels. However, recent evidence points to the fact that women, and particularly minorities (intersection between race, gender, and orientation-i.e. black women, lesbians and bisexual women of colour) are most susceptible to subtle forms of discrimination at different academic related settings.Of note, students who identified themselves as part of the sexual minority population on campus (for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer) had a 7% lower likelihood of persisting after four years in major STEM fields. This longitudinal study was conducted among 4162 STEM-aspiring college students across 78 institutions providing STEM majors in the fourth year of college. Interestingly, the authors observed that gender minority students were more likely to participate in undergraduate research programs, and the conventional gender disparity in STEM retention (i.e more males versus female retention) was reversed among STEM sexual women minority groups. However, overall, this study showed that minority men persisting in STEM fields were higher than that for minority women [36].

Such feelings of isolation among minority groups on campus for both genders are no different than at STEM workplaces. In a study examining the experiences faced by the LGBTQ community in STEM–representative survey data from 21 STEM professional societies– showed that LGBTQ STEM professionals experienced harassment, career limitations, and professional devaluation as compared to their non-LGBTQ peers after controlling for demographic, discipline, and job factors (LGBTQ sample = 25,324; NLGBTQ = 1006). The authors highlight that despite LGBTQ professionals having equal commitment, work ethic and academic qualifications, they were more likely to have health issues while at work, and were more likely to intend to quit STEM than their non-LGBTQ peers. These results persisted across STEM disciplines and employment sectors thereby leading the authors to conclude that the LGBTQ status is a clear axis of inequality in STEM [37].

4.1 Racial micro-aggressions (RMAs)

Given the high prevalence of attitudes towards attrition both on campus and in the professional space, few studies have investigated potential mechanisms leading to such isolated hopeless feelings. Some studies on college campuses have suggested that minorities in many STEM fields are subject to subtle micro-aggression imposed by the majority- either implicitly or explicitly. Conclusions drawn from an online survey of more than 4800 students of colour attending university show that Racial MicroAggressions (RMAs) are frequently experienced by students of color, particularly black students at all levels- environment on campus, interactions in academic classroom environments, and interaction with peers. The authors suggest that an implicit ingrained campus culture of exclusion is responsible for increased frequency of micro-aggressions against students of colour. The authors provide evidence for continued and persistent presence of anti-Black racism in higher education and suggest the need for an inclusive environment at all levels on campus. They propose the need for faculty members, academic professionals, and students to collaboratively work together to address racism at the academic, peer, and campus levels [38]. Similar, a study identifying micro-aggressions in ‘Sexual and Gender Minority’ (SGM) individuals (interviews with 29 SGM STEM undergraduates to assess campus micro-climate) reported that students with gender minority identities experience a higher frequency and a more severe form of micro-aggressions compared to students with sexual minority identities. Likewise, the study shows that students with a racial minority status have additional compounding issues related to identity. Interestingly, SGM students with social capital or a better network of people to turn to for advice seem to believe that they are a better fit in STEM as opposed to those who are not buffered by such social capital. Active strategies taken by students to defend themselves against hostile micro-aggressions such as behavioral changes in the way they present themselves in certain contexts and surrounding themselves with accepting colleagues were very effective for persistence in STEM. These key findings reveal strategies by which SGM individuals can find a better fit in STEM- both at the individual interaction level as well as at the institutional level [39].

4.2 Student-faculty relationships: race and gender differences

A study of 3864 students from 28 selective institutions (National Longitudinal Study of Freshmen (NLSF)- multi-wave longitudinal survey) between 2000 to 2004 provided evidence that discrimination from faculty directly impacted recipient students’ GPA scores in a negatively manner (β = −.08, p < .05) whereas academic satisfaction had a direct positive effect (β = 0.17, p < 0.001). The population studied was balanced for gender, and roughly had equal amounts of Black, White, Hispanic, and Asian American Students. A negative indirect effect of being Black on college GPA was observed mediated by greater feelings of discrimination from faculty and lower academic satisfaction. Key findings revealed differential effects of student-faculty interaction on GPA, with Black STEM students being more prone to experience discrimination in student-faculty interactions than other races. In conclusion, this study shows that faculty-student interactions benefit certain races and ethnicities to a great extent with minorities, particularly black women, experiencing negative impacts of faculty-student interactions on resultant GPA [40]. At higher academic level, studies trying to analyze student-advisor gender and race couples (Ph.D.s in STEM in South-Africa graduating between 2000 and 2014)- on productivity in academia showed that females have a 10% lower productivity than their male colleagues; however, this holds true for female graduate students working with male advisors and not female advisors. These results were more pronounced given the joint effect of gender and race. When controlled for productivity, low or high productivity female students with women advisors were as productive as low or high productivity male students with male advisors. This study suggests that female students are not fairly treated compared to their male counterparts when guided by male faculty, when controlled for other aspects [41].

In another large scale study (58,281 students participating in the 2006 University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey (UCUES) analyzing student-faculty interactions in research universities showed that along with gender and race, social class and first generational status among students have a major role to play in governing the frequency and outcomes of such interactions. For example, male students were more likely to assist faculty in research as volunteers or for pay while women tended to research more towards attaining course credits. Student-Faculty interactions by racial groups showed that Afro-Americans interacted most with faculty but spent lowest amounts of time assisting faculty with research for pay or course credit. Interaction satisfaction for the Afro-American race was the poorest, with white male students having high rates of satisfactions with such interactions. Research related student-faculty interactions were associated positively with GPA for all races but particularly evident for the Afro-American race; however course-related faculty interactions had no effect on GPA, degree aspirations, critical thinking and communication. This study demonstrates that the outcomes and perceptions of student-faculty interactions are governed by student gender, ethnicity, socio-cultural traits, and experiences [42].

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5. Recruitment to academic positions: minorities underrepresented

In a randomized double blind study assessing subtle implicit gender bias of faculty in recruitment for a lab managers’ post, the participating male and female faculty were more likely to choose a male applicant over a female applicant. The faculty participating rated the male applicants as more competent and hireable than the identical female applicants, besides selecting a higher starting salary and giving them more mentoring support. Mediation analyses revealed that female students were perceived as less competent with the faculty’s preexisting subtle bias (measured using a standardized instrument) against female students playing a moderating role. This study concludes that there needs to be interventions that remove such implicit gender bias in the recruitment process so that more women are given an opportunity in academia [43]. In keeping with the above study, a study focusing on scientific employment trends suggested that male faculty members heading biology laboratories in leading academic institutions in the United States employed fewer female graduate students and postdoctoral researchers (post-doctorates) than their female counterparts. Interestingly, this study provided evidence that HHMI funded elite biology scientists elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), some of whom have won major career awards, tend to train significantly fewer women than other male faculty members [44]. A cascading effect of such findings was revealed in the number of new assistant professors at the institutions surveyed in the study. The high-profile laboratories that flirted with gender bias in terms of recruitment (i.e. more male doctoral and postdoctoral students) were predominantly the laboratories that gave rise to assistant professors. In keeping with prestige hiring, a recent study has highlighted that a handful of universities supply majority of the tenure track faculty across disciplines. Moreover, gains in women’s representation among faculty were shown to be mainly due to demographic turnover and earlier structural changes to the hiring process, and such changes would unlikely lead to parity in the near future for most disciplines [45]. A study relating to gender bias in letters of recommendation showed that biased letters of recruitment seemed to be unlikely in causing lower recruitment of women- women candidates were characterized as brilliant three times more as compared to men in analyzed recommendation letters however an open-ended search for gendered language revealed disparities favoring men in Physics [46]. Stemming this leaky pipeline in biomedical research would be important going forward by helping top-notch elite male scientists be more aware of implicit gender bias that may be a chronic problem in the hiring process [For example, see (44)]. In a study on recruitment of Assistant Professors (n = 207) and senior researchers (n = 153) into Swedish medical university (KI) Karolinska Institute between 2014 and 2017 showed that external peer reviewer scores for women applicants were less than men per unit of academic productivity (academic productivity was scored by a composite bibliometric score computed based on seven academic productivity parameter ratings). Based on the (non-KI) reviewer score, women received only 32 or 92% of the score men received per unit increase of composite productivity score for assistant professors and senior researchers respectively. Interestingly, as productivity increases, the differences in the subjectively reviewed peer scores increase. Thus, this study shows that gender bias is quantifiable and majorly affects highly productive candidates- the pool from which recruitment to posts takes place suggesting a need for adoption of computed track records to mitigate such biases [47].

However important game changing studies have countered the argument that selection committees in academic institutions are biased towards men. A study by William Ceci provided data to show that gender bias in faculty recruitment is not the case and in fact their groups staged experiments showed that there is a 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track (873 tenure-track faculty (439 male, 434 female) surveyed at 371 universities/colleges from 50 US states). The results from the main experiment– 363 faculty members evaluating narrative summaries describing hypothetical male and female applicants for tenure-track assistant professorships– as well as the follow up studies showed that women are preferred for assistant professor tenure track positions, irrespective of whether they were divorced or took pregnancy related breaks. Furthermore, validation based experiments with full CVs showed that the result was real, suggesting a propitious time for women to launch a career in STEM [48]. However, a number of commentaries and viewpoints have repudiated the results of this study citing improper experimental design and poorly conducted research. In keeping with this narrative, some studies have revealed no such gender related hiring bias but have pointed to positive and negative biases at play in the recruitment process. In a study among data from Italian universities and research institutes, no gender related differences were seen among candidates subject to a positive bias in terms of recruitment. Interestingly, those candidates affected by negative bias were more men than women. Focusing on the factors determining success in recruitment drives across Italian universities, number of years of the applicant in the same university and the male gender of the committee chair served as positive factors with greater weight for males applicants whereas the presence of a full tenure track women professor in the same university with the same family name as the candidate showed greater weight for female applicants [49]. Another key study aiming to analyze the impact of more diverse recruitment committees (in terms of women and underrepresented minorities URMs) revealed that the higher the diversity the higher the number of women and minority applicants in the selected applicant pools (100% more URM applicants for a URM chair and 23% more women applicants in selected pools with a woman chair- an analysis of recruitment data of 13,750 job applications). This study suggests that women and URMs actively reach out to a more diverse set of applicants lending weight to the homophily theory in increasing the representation of women and URM in the workforce [50]. Previous studies have proposed using composite bibliometric indicators for assessing applicants to academic positions as modeling reveals surprisingly good predictive power which can help peer reviewers in non-prejudiced assessment of candidates [51].

5.1 Gap in pay for equal work: minorities bear the brunt

Not only problems with recruitment need to be fixed but also problems associated with pay gaps between majority and minority groups in STEM disciplines. A study focusing on the gender gap in pay in chemistry by determining the effects of human capital, labor market structure, and employer discrimination showed that 17% of the pay gap could be attributed to discrimination or unaccounted factors. Results from this study revealed that male chemists earned 30 percent more than female chemists in 2000 (Data obtained from the American Chemical Society (ACS) 2000 census- (N = 22,081)). Decomposition modeling of factors related to earning disparities between gender can be explained by differences in productivity characteristics, educational attainment, levels of experience, work function (i.e. senior versus junior posts) and employer [52].

A study of 13,855 male chemists working full-time in industry (American Chemical Society (ACS) 2005) census showed that there was a significant racial wage gap with minority chemists receiving lower wages than white chemists. Further exponential modeling analysis of different factors attributing to salaries revealed that Asian and Black chemists have wage differentials largely due to discrimination while the pay gap for Hispanic chemists are due to the lower educational attainment and experience. Minority Women were not included in the analysis as they were very low in numbers and therefore considered to be insignificant for such an analysis [53].

However, even though individual characteristics and discipline do account for pay disparities; these disparities can differ based on individual Institutional context -organizational mission, resources, and power influence [54]. A study investigating whether academic field and educational attainment played an impact on pay gaps revealed that these two factors could account for 13 to 23 percent of the racial pay gaps. However, these factors could not account for the gender pay gaps. Black women’s earnings are lower compared to all other groups studied and were in a disadvantageous position both due to lower attainment and lower returns to education. Moreover, this study showed that the pay gap between races could be reduced by equalizing educational attainment whereas normalizing wage returns would help reduce gender pay disparities [55]. An interesting longitudinal study (1999–2008) analyzing postdoctoral salaries (N = 10,000) identified women to suffer from pay gaps irrespective of race. Asian postdoctoral candidates bagged the greatest share of returns irrespective of gender and minority males had better returns as compared to their predominantly white colleagues subject to marriage as a personal trait. This data points to the fact that many factors such as educational attainment, work experience, working roles, positions of power, organization and employment sector affect salary attainment universally across the board; however, race and gender are important factors furthering pay disparities in many instances [56].

5.2 Need for diversity at the top: highlighting the need for editorial board diversity

Studies of 43,000 reviewers and 9000 editors from the Frontiers series of journals show that women are underrepresented in the peer-review process, and male and female editors operate differently with same-gender preference (homophily) with gender specific mechanisms of homophily. Forecasting data shows that gender homophily will persist even if gender parity is achieved in most disciplines [57]. In terms of understanding whether the gender gap in publication rates is associated with biased peer review and editorial processes, a study of 740,000 referees and 7 million authors for 145 journals in various fields of research was carried out. Surprisingly, this study showed that publications with women first authors are treated even more favorably by editors and referees, and therefore women authors or co-authors are not penalized in the peer review process based on gender. However, this study points that more is needed to be done to achieve gender homogeneity in editor and reviewer pools [58]. A study of 180,000 papers between 2004 and 2010 by the Italian Research Assessment of Universities and Research Centers shows that characteristics of referees, researchers’ observable characteristics, and evaluation method has an impact on research evaluation between the sexes. Controlling for these factors reduces the gender gap in research evaluation with childbearing and maternity having no major impact on research evaluation. In terms of the evaluation method, bibliometrics was a better tool to evaluate women as opposed to peer review assessment [59]. A cross-sectional study of the Proportion of women as editors in chief in top-ranked medical journals of different specialties revealed that less than 1 in 5 editors in chief were women- in 27 of the 41 categories studied. However the study noted high variability between medical disciplines (0 to 82% across medical specialties), with certain disciplines (psychiatry; anesthesiology; dentistry, oral surgery and medicine; allergy; and ophthalmology) having no women editor-in-Chief’s to disciplines having an overrepresentation of women editors in chief (three categories-genetics and heredity, primary health care, and microbiology) [60]. Other fields like mathematics have an even more skewed gender distribution within editorial boards. A study of 435 journals in the mathematical sciences showed that 8.9% of the 13,067 editorships were held by women. Of these 435 journals, 51 have no editorships held by women, with 7.6% women as the median among journal boards. A deeper analysis by subfield reveals further variations with a median of 7.3% editorships held by women among publishers (SIAM publications being the highest-19.1%); and 7.3% editorships held by women among countries with high editorial strength (Canada (12.2%), France (11.7%), Australia (11.4%), and Italy (11.1%) have the greatest representation of women) [61] . A similar study carried out with data from 1985 to 2013, focusing on plant sciences, natural resource management, and environmental biology (10 highly regarded journals in these areas) showed that only 16% of subject editors were women [62]. Recent studies focusing on women from varying geographical regions and income groups of the country of affiliation for editorial leadership positions across 113 rehabilitation and sports science journals revealed that 24.7% were women (1792 out of 7248 editors (35.7% leadership and 64.3% advisors). In terms of the editorial hierarchy 10.4% of women were editors-in-chiefs, 24.5% were in editorial leadership positions and 24.8% played advisory roles. Editors affiliated with institutions from high-income countries were overwhelmingly represented- editors from institutions in North America occupied almost half of all editorial roles (93.5% of leadership roles and 93.1% of advisory positions) with editors affiliated with institutions from developing countries having insignificant representation [63]. An analysis of 53 subscription or open access geology journals in 2022 included in the Web of Science Core Collection™ showed that 85% of editor(s)-in-chief’s positions are occupied by a man or a group of men. The makeup of editorial boards in these sets of journals is 1:4 (Female: Male) [64]. Similar studies conducted in the sports and veterinary sciences field showed equivalent results in which women were outnumbered on high positions such as Editor-in-Chief and editorial boards of journals [65, 66]. However, some studies have recently shown an improvement in the number of females in editorial boards due to more appointments by Editors-in-Chief [67].

5.3 Women and URMs at the top-winds of change

A study surveying women holding top positions in academia regarding structural and policy changes needed for URMs in STEM revealed interesting perspectives. Women administrators endorse strategies to attract and retain women in STEM, irrespective of their effectiveness– 474 administrators (provosts, deans, associate deans, and department chairs across the US at 96 public and private research universities) data, of which 334 contained complete numerical data used in the analyses. Women administrators believed that the 44 listed strategies for better women representation and retention in STEM in this study were of higher quality overall but not higher in terms of feasibility. Interestingly some of the strategies were perceived differently by administrators of different genders- 9 out of the 44 strategies. Women administrators gave higher quality rating to policies and strategies increasing the value of teaching, administrative experience, and service in consideration for tenure track position attainment; conducting gender-equity research; supporting shared tenure lines; and increasing flexibility of federal-grant funding to accommodate mothers [68].

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6. Homophily among collaborative networks: a barrier to impact, diversity and productivity

Some scientometric studies have called into question the use of citations as an established metric when it comes to evaluation of the impact of an author’s work, particularly minority ethnic authors. The reason is the biased manner in which certain papers are cited more often– not solely due to impact or scientific merit– than should be due to various social factors. A study of 7,011,369 articles published in Web of Science between 2008 and 2016, showed that there is a major preferential biased pattern in citing papers, with male authors tending to self cite as well as cite their male counterparts more often, possibly neglecting the work of their female peers- Matilda effect in science. Male self citations contributed significantly to homophily in all fields. Women also tended to cite their female counterparts approx. 30% more in similar areas. This homophily citation tendency persisted across fields-social sciences and humanities (SSH), biomedical sciences (BM), and in Natural Sciences and Engineering (NSE) [69]. In an analysis of 2116 journals, 825 showed statistically significant evidence that authors tend to co-publish with same gender colleagues more often than by chance (alpha >0) after false discovery rate correction, and that this trend has no relation with gender ratio in certain fields (equal or women dominated streams in fact seemed to show as high or higher homophily), and it is more prominent now than it was 10 years ago. Interestingly, this large scale study pointed to the fact that journals with higher impact factor had weaker homophily (a negative correlation- R2 = 0.043, Spearman correlation = −0.19) [70]. Other large scale studies (over 9 million papers and 6 million scientists) have shown that significant homophily exists in ethnicity, gender and affiliation. Of note, this highlights the fact that ethnic diversity among co-authors on scientific manuscripts had the strongest correlation with scientific impact, which persisted after using randomized baseline models and coarsened exact matching. In keeping, ethnic diversity resulted in an impact gain of 47.67% for scientists and 10.63% for papers [71]. Similar results have been highlighted in a study on 2.5 million research papers between 1985 and 2008 in 11 scientific fields wherein papers with higher homophily between authors tend to be less impactful in their respective domains (lower citations and impact factor of journals in which the studies were published in). These observations persisted after controlling for numbers of authors per publication and for factors such as an ethnic groups’ population density. Some cited reasons were that scientists with lower productivity levels in terms of publications had a restricted pool of collaborators and homophily is greater between such authors; however, comparing within a pool of authors with comparable productivities showed that homophily within this pool lead to publications with lower impact compared to much more diverse author lists [72]. However, a recent study highlights a weak positive relationship between ethnic diversity and scientific impact, with a mediator analysis revealing a stronger effect for audience diversity rather than novelty in this relationship. This leads these authors to argue that ethnic diversity in author pools may lead to temporary but not lasting effects on scientific impact of manuscripts [73]. It is interesting to note that not all studies subscribe to the fact that authors spontaneously tend to form gender homophily groups among scientists, and that there are some crucial factors like geographical location, topic area, discipline and academic status that could also play a role in research cooperation, research support and social acquaintance networks. The results above were showcased in a study on principal investigators of two institutions from the German Excellence Initiative by applying a QAP network correlation analysis [74].

Studies focusing on key aspects of gender networks and how they compare provided evidence that women tended to have smaller networks than men, with size directly proportional to productivity. Furthermore, not just size but also network structure (women with closer links to focal authors tend to better leverage this advantage over their male counterparts) and composition does matter (women tended to be advantaged by advice networks with men being advantaged by instrumental networks and may be associated with productivity) [75]. Women tended to have fewer cosmopolitan prestigious international collaborative networks, but have greater propensity for interdisciplinary collaborations. Studies have also shown that women feel less integrated into informal networks, and gain less overall benefit from such informal networks as compared to their male counterparts [76].

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7. COVID-19: its impact on the productivity and attrition rates in STEM-analysis of the groups most affected

As expected due to lockdowns and social isolation, scientific productivity would naturally take a hit during the Covid19 pandemic (2020). However, paradoxically, data suggests an increase in productivity during the year 2022; however, this growth was not evenly balanced in terms of research topics. A meta-analysis study of 22,525 publications between January 01, 2019 and January 01, 2021 in 10 high-impact scientific journals showed that non-Covid19 related research suffered with the gaps in productivity being filled in by a spurt of Covid19 related research- 2, 00,000 COVID-19publications by December 2020. Fast paced peer review (approx. 30 days), and new larger collaborative groups (a median of 9.0 authors per publication) ensured that Covid19 related publications filled in at the expense of non-Covid19 publications [77]. These findings were echoed by a difference-in-differences analysis of 3,638,584 publications from January 2019 to December 2020 in Life Science wherein non-Covid19 related publications took a hit (10 to 12% decrease in non-COVID-19related publications [78]. Another study focussing on biomedical publication pattern changes due to COVID-19has highlighted similar trends- increased scientific productivity majorly due to a spurt of COVID-19related publications, faster time to acceptance of COVID-19 versus non- COVID-19 manuscripts, and a drop in international scientific collaborations [79].

A study focusing on how COVID-19 has increased the gender gap in STEM has revealed that the number of female first authors (21%), the share of female authorships (5%), the share of publications by mixed gender collaborations (6.8%), and the exacerbation of lower citations counts in literature in which females played a key role were more evident during the pandemic as opposed to pre-pandemic times [80]. This study used the difference in differences methods to highlight these changes before, during, and post the initial wave of the pandemic in different countries. However, one caveat affecting results could be the selection of papers from the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD) during the pandemic which could have its independent effects on female engagement as opposed to including all published literature [80]. A similar study comparing the proportions of male and female corresponding authors before and during the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on studies deposited in preprint servers bioRxiv and medRxiv, revealed an increase in the gender productivity gap post February 2020 in medRxiv as compared to previous months. There was no change in terms of gender gap in the bioRxiv preprint database. The studies highlight that even though there is an advantage of using preprint services to study real-time academic productivity trends, future studies are needed to understand whether such trends translate into concrete academic achievements [81]. More studies focusing on peer reviewing activities and submitted manuscripts in 2329 Elsevier journals (over 5 million authors and referees- between February and May 2018–2020) have further highlighted the gender disparity in the rates of publishing between genders during the first wave of Covid19 suggesting that work from home could impact women scientific productivity due to competing demands for familial duties. The disparity was less in terms of peer-review commitments between sexes [82].

A study conducting two surveys amongst principal investigators (between April 2020 and January 2021) showed a visible reduction in scientists’ research time which recovered from April 2020 (2.2 h per week) to January 2021 (7.1 h per week). An interesting finding in this article is the rate of initiation of new projects during the pandemic decreased sharply. Compared to 2019 levels of new project initiation (9%), there was a threefold jump in the number of scientists asserting that no new project was started in their lab in 2020. The authors’ analysis of the major predictive factors of this “no new research” situation using the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) regression showed that being female; having children below the age of five, and the research not being Covid19 related were significant. In terms of disciplines the fields of biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology was the most predictive field contributing to the “no new research” situation- a field which contains a heavy weightage of female scientists [83]. Another study examining how gender, race and parenthood impacts academic productivity among 3345 Brazilian academics from various research institutions and knowledge areas showed similar conclusions with the productivity of women being suppressed, with black women being and mothers being the most hard hit in terms of productivity. Men without children seemed the least affected [84].

A bibliometric analysis of publications authored by Filipinos showed an upward trend until COVID-19hit, beyond which the percentage rate of increase witnessed a sharp decline. The charting of Scopus based publications showed a count of 1381 in 2010, with a yearly increase of 17.8% until 2019 (total publication count 5808); however post COVID-19(i.e. 2020–2021) this growth rate slowed significantly to 5.5%. This data fore- boards a dark spell for scientific productivity in Asia, particularly the Southeast Asian region. It might take significant policy shifts and supportive assistance to scientists to get scientific productivity back on track in some of these developing countries.

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8. Suggestions to encourage women and minority groups to access STEM education and remain in the academic pipeline

There are many important suggestions put forth to encourage more women to major in STEM fields, particularly engineering, mathematics and computer sciences. Encouraging young girls to take up majors in engineering and mathematics by dispelling biased gender stereotypes of there being no space for women in such male dominated environments is essential. This can be done by encouraging girls’ participation in computer science, engineering, and mathematics projects, workshops, conferences and seminars at graduate and undergraduate levels [85]. Scholarships, fellowships, and awards should be made available to girls and minorities at undergraduate and graduate school to encourage them to enroll and register for higher studies in these male dominated spheres [86, 87, 88, 89].

In higher education, women and minorities in doctoral and post-doctoral programs should be encouraged by providing stimulating campus environments and supportive peer interactions free from implicit or explicit micro aggressions by dominant groups [90, 91]. Besides providing such a productive campus environment for minorities, women should have advisory committees that have adequate women representation and if possible a mentor/role models/advisors form the same or similar ethnicity [92, 93, 94, 95]. Furthermore, faster feedback and redressal mechanisms need to be installed at all levels to tackle systemic implicit and explicit systemic racism [96, 97, 98]. It is important that gender, ethnic/cultural, and socio-economic inclusivity be taught as a core generic course on campus to all students, particularly in male dominated streams in STEM [99, 100].

To keep women & other minorities in academic posts for longer periods of time, particularly junior posts- assistant professor posts, they should be encouraged with start-up resources both in terms of money as well as productive collaborators (opportunities for building long lasting strong academic collaborations) [101, 102]. Such resources should be made available at the institutional level which can be allocated for all incoming faculty, with a particular emphasis on minorities. Flexibility in terms of career growth is essential for women and minorities to remain in academia. Maternal leave and child care leave should be factored into tenure track assessments with the tenure clock being stopped for these periods [103]. Junior minority Principle Investigators (PIs) should be effectively tied up with experienced faculty on campus as well as with external collaborations so that academic work as well as productivity does not take a severe hit when they are on such unavoidable leave [104]. Project student sharing between PIs (one junior and one established) can be one such mechanism that could ensure sustenance of work and publication productivity during these stretches [105, 106, 107]. Women and URMs should be well-acknowledged for their contributions to scientific manuscripts and given priority when authorship for such manuscripts is decided [108]. More weightage should be given to productivity (this has to be decided by tenure track committees on a one-to-one basis) coming in from minority PIs; traditional parameters of productivity like h-index, number of citations, total number and impact of publications might not be fair indexes due to engrained disparities [109]. Rather the impact should be decided on the available resources that the laboratories or PIs had to begin with more scores being given to quality publications in terms of scientific contribution from under-resourced labs.

In terms of grant funding there can be many policy changes that can be implemented to ensure minority underrepresented PIs are taken care of: 1. More flexible grant cycles and submission patterns for underrepresented PIs (more calls for extra- as well as intra-mural funding) [110]; 2. Fixed number of grants to be allocated to minority scientists, institutions, and laboratories from low resource settings and low income countries [111]; 3. Rotation implementation on grants of equal or near equal merit to make sure that grant money is not being disproportionately allocated to one area or institution or lab 4. Scrap the new randomization grant allocation policy for grants of equal merit and lay more emphasis on allocating grants to groups consisting of racial and ethnic diversity; low resource areas or labs; or PIs that train and educate a diverse set of student trainees such as PhDs, Post-doctoral students [112, 113]; and 5. Encourage applications that are interdisciplinary in nature lead by diverse scientifically sound collaborative networks.

For increasing academic productivity the following steps can be taken: 1. Encourage strong academic productivity by building links between under-represented PIs and publication houses/Editors-in-Chief’s so that quality work never goes unnoticed 2. More representation and incentives for minorities to travel and establish collaborations at International and National scientific conferences must be made available; this will ensure network building leading to strong scientific collaborations, and reduce these minority groups’ feelings of isolation and despair. This will also ensure that minority PIs in competitive fields are able to gain access to high profile scientific networks and engage them towards writing up joint publications with improved quality as well as impact. 3. Institutions that house such PIs should allocate budgets to establish more visibility of the scientist’s work on and off campus (by sending them for academic talks to other institutions and likewise inviting more under represented PIs for talks); this would be essential to attracting talented students for projects on campus as well as outside campus plus give the PIs much need visibility to strengthen academic collaboration. 4. Publication houses need to be more aware in relation to establishing editorial boards with representation from minority groups but at the same time ensuring rigorous peer review quality is maintained (having co-Editor-in-Chiefs; with one representing an existing minority group can be an effective way to start) [110].

For increasing the impact of their work and publications, PIs (particularly minority PIs) as well as institutions and organizations should have their media teams capture such work and post such work on social media. PIs can also use preprints to disseminate their work much earlier to a larger group of people potentially inviting more visibility and therefore more leverage for academic collaboration [114].

Such discussions have started in academic circles but more needs to be done to make sure those minority talented young minds are not suppressed due to discrimination, and can work effectively and more vibrantly in such evenly established academic ecosystems [115].

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9. Conclusion

The entire leaky pipeline from enrolment of women and minority students into STEM disciplines, their retention, and issues related to representation of minorities at top academic jobs have been considered. Certain policies and practices that increase minority representation at all stages in STEM ought to be implemented such as: 1. More opportunities in terms of scholarships and fellowships need to be in place to help the socio-economically disadvantaged minorities; 2. Raising awareness regarding the negative culturally engrained gender and minority biased stereotypic views hindering participation in STEM; 3. Indentifying and building crucial support systems for minority groups to reduce the impact of explicit or implicit racism in and out of the classrooms and increase their self-belonging and self-esteem in STEM with the ultimate goal of building safe and conducive niches where minorities can deliver their best in terms of productivity; 4. Inviting and recruiting academically accomplished minorities to the policy and decision making groups in academic institutes, and government science bodies to ensure inclusive policies towards recruitment and sustenance of minority academics in STEM (making the career path to tenure track (permanent positions) more accessible and flexible to deserving faculty with a proven track record of academic productivity); 5. Research institutions should be encouraged to provide additional support in terms of funding and collaborative opportunities to minorities but at the same time ensure that such opportunities are utilized effectively by measuring outcomes; and 6. Creating incentives for diversifying research collaborative clusters to include academics of different races and ethnicities with the aim that their inputs strengthen the quality and impact of the proposed science. Even though some of the statistics are clear with regards to the problems areas associated with the leaky STEM pipeline for women and minorities; more research is needed to identify and understand the specific barriers to minority participation in STEM in each contextual setting- there might not be a one fits-all solution but rather local solutions to local identified problems might be the way forward. Therefore, a particular emphasis towards the awareness & perception of minorities towards STEM, the gaps in local socio-cultural frameworks promoting diversity in STEM, and the existing scientific policies hindering equity for minorities in STEM need further investigation.

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Acknowledgments

I acknowledge Dr. Srujana Medithi from the Nutrition and Dietetics Department, Symbiosis Institute of Health Sciences, SIU for perusing through the manuscript and providing valuable suggestions to enrich this book chapter. Dr. Arti Muley from Symbiosis Institute of Technology, Symbiosis International University (SIU) for introducing us to scientometrics through a well designed workshop.

Conflict of interest

“The authors declare no conflict of interest.”

Notes/thanks/other declarations

The authors thank Symbiosis International (Deemed University) for giving us a worthy platform for publishing such scientific content.

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Written By

Dwight Figueiredo

Submitted: 06 October 2022 Reviewed: 06 April 2023 Published: 09 May 2023

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