Mollie Manier would often teach an elementary school class with her 1-year-old daughter strapped to her back.

A new mom, Manier was getting her postdoctoral degree in biology at Oregon State University when she picked up the teaching job to help pay for her tuition.

‘It was normal to me,’ Manier said. ‘That’s what I did. That’s what I had to do. So I did it.’

Manier, 34, is now a research associate in the biology department at Syracuse University working toward her second postdoctoral degree. Like many other women in the sciences, Manier must balance raising two children with her studies in a research-intensive field – a trade off that a new study found often deters women from staying in the sciences.

‘It’s really hard. It’s really, really hard,’ she said.

For women in the sciences, difficulty moving from an undergraduate student to a professor with tenure is nothing new. Now, a study from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, reports that women with Ph.Ds in the sciences will continue ‘leaking out’ unless they receive more aid from federal agencies and institutions.

The four-year-long study gathered information from federal sources and academic institutions. ‘The time pressures of academia are unrelenting’ for women in the sciences, according to the report, ‘Staying Competitive: Patching America’s Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences.’

Women often work toward a higher degree during their 20s and 30s – the same years they typically have children. And the research-intensive nature of the sciences makes it particularly time consuming.

Marc Goulden, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, was one of three researchers who authored the report. The only way to solve the national problem is for both federal agencies and universities to work together, Goulden said.

‘A career matters a lot, but families matter a lot, too,’ he said.

Although there have been more females recruited into the sciences, and the undergraduate male to female ratio is about even, Goulden called the failure to retain these women a ‘national problem.’

Women married with children are 35 percent less likely than married men with children to enter a tenure track position in the sciences after receiving a Ph.D., according to the report. Single women without young children are about as successful as married men with children, according to the report.

A major reason women are leaving the sciences has to do with a lack of benefits, including maternity leave available to graduate and doctoral students who are also mothers, according to the report.

Linda Ivany, an assistant professor in SU’s College of Arts and Sciences, is familiar with the problem.

‘It’s a long-standing issue, but it comes down to biology and that women are the ones who have kids,’ she said.

The male to female ratio becomes more male dominated in graduate, postdoctoral and faculty settings. As an undergraduate at SU, Ivany said she was ‘oblivious’ to gender issues, but she became more aware when she pursued a Ph.D. at Harvard University.

Promoting science as a career field for women is important for retention as well, Ivany said.

‘The more women you get in the field, the more women you’re going to keep in,’ she said.

The sciences have typically been promoted as a man’s field, and having a child does not affect men involved in the sciences as much as women, according to the report.

For Dawn Higginson, a Ph.D. student in biology at SU, ratios reflect changing times.

‘There is still a level of the ‘old boys club’ that lingers in some biology departments, but that is fading as good ol’ boys retire,’ Higginson said.

While Higginson said she did not think that having children would decrease a woman’s chance of being hired, she did think that interviewing for a job while visibly pregnant could be detrimental.

‘No one wants to hire someone who will immediately go on maternity leave,’ she said.

Some universities may not meet Title IX requirements for maternity leave, according to the study. But, SU meets Title IX requirements. The school offers paid maternity leave to full-time tenure and tenure-track faculty and six sick days that can be used for personal illness or to care for a family member, according to SU’s Human Resources Web site. Graduate and doctoral students can take an unpaid leave of absence, according to SU’s Graduate School Web site.

Cristina Marchetti, professor and chair of the Department of Physics, said SU introduced innovative ways to help women early on. When she came to the university with her husband in the late 1980s, Marchetti was pregnant with her first child.

‘Times have changed, but not as much as they should have,’ Marchetti said.

Although SU has been accommodating, she said there are still too few women in the sciences.

Within the past 10 years, SU has addressed the issue through the Women in Science and Engineering program. Through the program, an undergraduate residential learning community aims to help women at SU advance in the sciences through mentoring and group research opportunities.

Shobha Bhatia, co-director and co-founder of Women in Science and Engineering and a professor of civil and environmental engineering at SU, said she felt secluded when she first broke into the sciences.

‘I was one of four women in a class of 140,’ she said about her undergraduate education at the University of Roorkee in India in the early 1970s.

The authors of the University of California, Berkeley study considered the report especially timely with the Obama administration prioritizing scientific research in America and advocating for a larger workforce in the sciences.

And for Manier, the SU postdoctoral student, the difficulties women scientists face do not discourage her.

‘Your biggest challenge is your day is full, and then you’re working long hours at a different job at night,’ Manier said. ‘You can do it. It’s totally do-able.’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

Published on December 8, 2009 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride