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Comment on ‘Jobs for the boys’
Author(s) -
Köcher Thomas
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/embor.2011.89
Subject(s) - population , gender gap , principal (computer security) , variety (cybernetics) , psychology , library science , political science , sociology , demographic economics , demography , economics , computer science , artificial intelligence , operating system
More than 20 years after the introduction of measures to close the so‐called gender gap, there is little evidence that these efforts have led to an even representation of women and men at universities and research institutions. In a recent editorial, Howy Jacobs pointed to some of the side effects of the gender gap, namely the associated waste of investments (Jacobs, 2011). Obviously, it is not cost‐efficient to educate equal numbers of women and men without realising their full benefits for society. Even worse, the gender‐specific brain drain happens mainly at the transition between post‐doctoral fellow and principal investigator (Martinez et al , 2007), thereby maximizing the damage. In addition, given the enormous variety and number of scientific and technological challenges, society cannot afford to neglect the talent of a significant part of the population.Detailed statistical analyses of the career paths of young scientists have been done, but have not provided comprehensive explanations of the problem (Ledin et al , 2007). The …