The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037/full

by tomp • 11 years ago

98 85 11 years ago

journal.frontiersin.org

cup3• 11 years ago

I had a long discussion with my old supervisor last week about the merit of a PhD (in Biology, Physiology, Pharmaceutics and that genre of field) and she mentioned to me that she doesn't recommend students pursue them anymore.

It was a sad conversation but not surprising. So many students, myself included, invest such significant portions of their lives pursuing a level of education that statistically won't be useful for them or society.

There are no jobs available, funding is drying up and specifically theres an over supply of PhD qualified researchers out there. Thats not to say doing a PhD isn't a bad idea, but from an academic persective there are better alternatives. Especially in the biology field.

After the 7-10 years it takes to pursue a PhD one could become a clinical specialist, employed with arguably better working conditions and research prospects.

rjsw• 11 years ago

Is that really new ? The Biology teachers when I was at school were much better than those for other science subjects, the Biology ones had all done research but had gone into teaching as there were few other jobs available.

ousta2• 11 years ago

In most of european countries only fools will expect to do a PHD and get money out of it. it is common knowledge that you will gt a PHD, some prestige around it, some students will go private with luck if they work on some employable field such as a PHD thesis on machine learning for instance but most of the other PHDs will end up teachers which isnt the best pay ever in europe. and this is true for the real scientific PHDs. I am not talking about "PHDs" on gender studies, sociology or psychology which is a synonym for "please do not employ me my degree is useless". at the end it is really the subject of your PHD that will decide how much you will make. Even more than the outcome of your thesis...

cup3• 11 years ago

The suggestion that a psychology, sociology or even gender studies PhD is useless reeks of ignorance. A serious body of academic work, no matter what It's field, is important for the advancement of our society, no matter how gradual.

The maxim that no one goes into a PhD to get rich is true, but at the same time, no one goes into a PhD to be unemployed or to become a teacher. Theres no reason to invest a decade doing primary research when an undergraduate with a masters in teaching will suffice.

cryoshon6• 11 years ago

Yeah, there's not many jobs in biology, and funding is pretty bad in the public sector. Biotech is a rocket ship in the early phase of blastoff, though. Jobs are still ultra-competitive to get, but there's plenty of cash to go around for the actual projects(since employees are plentiful and disposable).

Plenty of people in the biotech industry just have a bachelors. There's still some holdovers from academia who insist that PhDs have to be the ones making the science decisions, but it's still not as ossified as academia.

tertius• 11 years ago

"making the science decisions"

If you want your tech (in biotech) to be novel, then yes you need people with experience who can imagine solutions to problems.

danieltillett2• 11 years ago

The reason is more men are leaking. Unless you think this a good thing then this is not progress. We would not think we are making progress in equalising gender differences in life expectancy by bumping off little old ladies.

tomp2• 11 years ago

Why would "more PhDs" equate with "more progress"? Maybe the people purposefully avoid PhDs, because they don't consider them valuable enough?

copsarebastards2• 11 years ago

I think that's true; many people do avoid Ph.D.s because they aren't a good investment. Whether or not that's progress depends on your goals: if you just care about more people having more money, then sure, more Ph.D.s doesn't equal more progress in the short run.

But at least in the US, there's a huge problem that the problems we have that can be solved are increasingly technical, requiring more and more education. Meanwhile, the incentives we're providing incentivize not getting more education. If we're going to continue the charade that capitalism is meritocratic, we need to align the incentives with the needs of our culture and economy, or the results will be disastrous.

brighteyes• 11 years ago

Yes, exactly: Maybe men irrationally pursued more PhDs than made sense, while women made more logical decisions all along, and men's lower rates reflect them improving their life choices.

danieltillett2• 11 years ago

Well I did preface with unless…, but we are talking about the loss of people who start a STEM career and don’t finish. It is not an efficient use of resources to have people start a long career path and not finish. What has happened is more men are now dropping out so as a cohort they have the same chance of finishing as women.

As for why this is happening yes I agree with you that even men have figured out that the the whole STEM career path is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme designed to exploit idealistic young people. As someone who loves science this makes me so angry I can’t politely put it into words - by this I mean the running of science as a Ponzi scheme, not people realising this is the case.

tptacek• 11 years ago

How do you know it's not a sectoral shift away from STEM impacting both genders uniformly, coupled with successful efforts to correct for attrition among women?

GFK_of_xmaspast• 11 years ago

As more women enter in and stay in a field, it becomes perceived as 'women's work' and men will abandon it.

jacalata• 11 years ago

Sure, that's a thing - but I'm pretty sure that STEM PhDs has not reached that point and so that phenomenon is probably irrelevant here.

cryoshon6• 11 years ago

I've discussed this in the past, but the basic reasoning here is that more and more people ("men" are singled out for this article but it's irrelevant) are leaving academia and not looking back, along with rising populations of people opting to not enter academia in the first place.

Science offers a shitty value proposition: spend your youth in the laboratory for poverty-wages, then your late youth doing the same for poor wages, then your middle age doing the same for poor wages, then maybe you become a professor and make average to decent wages. Sure, science is interesting, and for a certain kind of personality (mine, for instance) the bullshit can be tolerated, for a time. Some people can tolerate it forever because tolerating bullshit means they get to research something that is intensely interesting to them.

But everyone sees the writing on the wall-- science is not a path to a healthy middle class lifestyle for the current generation, and wasn't for the previous generation of scientists either. In fact, I reckon you'd have to go back to the boomers if you want to see people who really had a good thing going in the scientific establishment. There is no opportunity to "hit it out of the park" and somehow come back with a windfall.

6stringmerc2• 11 years ago

I'd like to note agreement and support of this perspective. Personal anecdote to follow.

At a Top 60 World Ranked Research University, I have seen first-hand the students / Post-Docs dealing with a critical lack of jobs or opportunities within academic research. Not to belabor my overall vitriol toward the Boomer generation regarding their behaviors in the market (e.g. "Get all I can, screw those behind me"), but those who have 'made it' and are decision makers now have changed the dynamics to reflect more of a cut-throat, race-to-the-bottom labor pool perspective. That doesn't even factor in the 'IP creep' of interests outside of science trying to get a piece of the action these days.

The most telling example? A person working in a good lab (good publication record, pretty well funded) was a PhD Post Doc from the institution where they were working in the lab. Due to cutbacks, the Chair told the PI that costs needed to be cut, which meant 1 employee had to go elsewhere. Rather than suggest the last-hired employee be the one, the Chair pointed to the PhD Post Doc and said: "Just fire her and get an H1-B."

I trust my sources and do know the context of the conversation / lab's outlook. It was pretty stunning to me though. Go to great university, get PhD, put in effort and be on papers as a Post Doc, then kicked to the curb for an H1-B on a purely fiscal basis. That's some hot garbage right there. I'm glad to note that the Post Doc in this story has left bench science and is now a full time professor elsewhere, where she is appreciated much more. And, without hesitation, she steers talented science minds away from research as a career.

shas34• 11 years ago

I call bullshit. Given how little a department actually spends on employees that report to PIs, it would be interesting to know how this happened! Further, H1B is not a zero-cost or low cost proposition for universities and departments, especially for short term appointments! He said she said can provoke discussions, but should also be viewed with skepticism! It might work for large companies because the upfront cost ($10k attorney, filing, etc.) amortizes over the several years the h1b is likely to be employed.

laurencerowe• 11 years ago

That sounds surprising as a post-doc will be paid significantly less than a staff member (which an H1-B implies.)

zenogais• 11 years ago

This was pretty much the reason I didn't go to grad school, despite having a full ride. Seemed like a one-way ticket to misery and poverty, and I was kinda over that after working my way through college (having as many as 3 jobs at a time plus classes full-time).

rayiner• 11 years ago

No, you don't understand.

Science is its own reward. You're pushing forward the frontier of human knowledge! You should share everything you learn for free with the world, and just be happy that you left the world a better place than you found it.

Money is such a lesser reward anyway compared to the adulation scientists get. After all, history will remember the guy who discovered the capacitive touchscreen, not the one that made billions putting it into a phone.

toolz• 11 years ago

The world would be a better place if we all had this thought process, but I could never have this perspective. Even when I first read your comment, my gut reaction was disgust. It took me a moment to reflect and even then I know I couldn't condition myself to think like this. I crave external approval and as much as scientists might think of themselves, the world at large see's you as a tool used by politicians and entrepreneurs.

Thanks for being able to have a healthy perspective and I hope you can convince more people to do the same.

TeMPOraL3• 11 years ago

That's exactly why academia sucks so much - since for the best scientists science is its own reward, people figured out they can skimp on monetary rewards.

Ironically, this sabotages science very much. Research works best when you can focus on your work and are free from dealing with bullshit like worrying whether you'll have enough money for your rent or groceries of health bills.

I understand how the forces of the market lead to this, but it still rubs me wrong - jobs seem to be rewarded inversely to their social value. ER personell and doctors saving people work three shifts and live on minimum wage. Soldiers risking their lives can barely get by (especially after they actually took the risk and didn't die). All that while celebrities earn millions for being nothing more than celebrities.

And don't get me wrong - I don't mind that a talking head earns in a week more than most in a year. I only wish the society could reward properly the people who are working their butts off to make a positive difference.

bsummer4• 11 years ago

Yep. This is the same bullshit that some companies with open-source products try to shove down your throat.

Afforess• 11 years ago

I think I'd rather take the billions than the place in history.

shas34• 11 years ago

Apple and touchscreens is a bit of an outlier here. History remembers the following guys, but few know who made billions putting it into stuff:

1. Jack Kirby and IC

2. Bardeen, Shockley,and Brattain and semiconductors

3. Akasaki, Amano, and Nakamura and blue leds

4. Boyle and Smith for CCD arrays

5. Townes, Pokhorov, and Basov for lasers

6. Watson, Crick, and Wilkins for structure of DNA

It's besides the point that some of them weren't necessarily in academia.

You can find their names, their speeches, their books and papers in any library or in many places online. Whilst, who remembers CEOs of Intel (notable exceptions apart), or of the 10s of other important semiconductor IC companies, or of companies that made commercial 'laser' disc and cd drives, or biotech companies, etc.?

cozzyd2• 11 years ago

You don't do science for the money[0] nor for the adulation. You do it because solving real problems that nobody else has is exciting. There is some of that in industry too (I think?), but I imagine it's not the same environment.

[0] My social worker wife always reminds me that we are compensated well enough. Physics, at least, seems to pay better than e.g. biology (physics postdocs usually pay 50-60k nowadays while bio postdocs can be less than 40k).

madengr• 11 years ago

I couldn't tell you how invented the capacitive touch screen (probably several) and I'm an EE, but Steve Jobs made billions putting it in a phone.

eli_gottlieb3• 11 years ago

Academics don't want to play entrepreneur. We don't want all the money. We want enough to do what we like doing.

Thriptic2• 11 years ago

I don't think it's necessarily the case that academic science is a shitty value proposition; it could work well if funding were increased (obviously) and the university science model was done away with in favor of something resembling the institute model:

1. Everyone should be able to call themselves a PI and get space if they can bring in grants, and everyone should be able to apply for all grants. You shouldn't be locked out of getting funding just because your employer hasn't given you an arbitrary title.

2. The faculty / student model should be done away with after the masters degree. PIs should be spending 100% of their time doing research (or raising money) and stop wasting time on tenure track nonsense. If you want to employ someone to do science under you as a grad student or post doc is now, then they should be paid a salary at least as large as what a technician would make in industry. There should also be no institute or government ceiling on salary, as people should be able to negotiate for whatever they are worth.

3. Salaries should be increased at the expense of overhead, which could be massively reduced outside of a university.

4. Investigators should own their IP. Institutes should have TLOs in place to help investigators monetize the IP for a percentage of ownership if they want.

The main issue with this model would be funding start up packages, which is a non-trivial problem which I haven't figured out a solution for yet. Perhaps these could be partially crowd funded? I would be interested in getting peoples' input.

collyw• 11 years ago

If the research is publicly funded then the IP should be public in my opinion.

shas34• 11 years ago

Fully in agreement. I think the answer to the PhD/postdoc glut should be more institutes. We still need the universities for teaching, and they are doing an outstanding job at that. I think of all the university systems in the world, American is perhaps the best. But unfortunately, institutes are more prevalent as a research model in Western Europe. More British and French researchers in my field are affiliated with institutes than American. Institute affiliation (INRIA,CNRS, private-endowed institutes in UK, Max Planck Institutes, etc.) is the norm in Europe, while it is an outlier in the US.

lambda• 11 years ago

Hmm. Some interesting data, but it doesn't really cover anything like the full "pipeline", which goes past the PhD to postdocs and then to faculty positions. And of course, that's only covering academic exits, while going into industry is another avenue, and there has been no analysis of whether the pipeline from bachelors to industry has been leaky in STEM fields.

Now, hitting a cap on the percentage of people entering the "pipeline" does mean that there's only so much effect that the "leaky pipeline" could have. The self-selection that happens even upon entering a bachelor's program is a pretty large factor, which needs to be studied; is it due to differences at the high school level? Difference in perceived job prospects, perhaps due to problems further down the pipeline like postdoc and tenure positions? Even if the pipeline is only getting a small percentage of women up front, it's possible that feedback from further down the line is what is causing that disparity.

Anyhow, it is good to have some concrete numbers on at least this portion of the pipeline, to inform where efforts should be spent. It sounds like the bachelors to PhD portion was fairly leaky in the past, so efforts to improve that have helped, but now effort would be better spent on looking at other aspects of the system.

kelukelugames2• 11 years ago

Proud STEM PhD drop out from MIT reporting in. Aside from a few who went into consulting or banking, I make way more as a code monkey than those who stayed to finish.

ska4• 11 years ago

And if that's how you are measuring "success", then you obviously made the right choice for you.

Don't get me wrong, I left academia (albeit further on) and think there are lots of sensible reasons to leave.

However if the relatively low pay is either a) a surprise to you or b) a known problem for you when entering a PhD program - then you just didn't do your homework and probably shouldn't have entered the program. Of course sometimes it takes a while to work this out for yourself.

With a few very specific exceptions, entering a PhD program for the money is inept.

kelukelugames2• 11 years ago

It's one thing to do your homework and another to be eat ramen when you are 25 years old.

logfromblammo2• 11 years ago

Total lifetime earnings is a great way to measure success, from the perspective of how the 7 billion people on this planet, minus you, value your work. If you value your own work differently, that's fine, but yours will be the minority opinion.

Overall low career pay to work difficulty ratio in comparison to other fields is a clear signal for young people to not pursue that option as a career. Despite the trope about falling education standards, the young people entering college and choosing their concentrations are not entirely stupid. They know that they won't get a job in the art field with that degree in art history. But they also know they won't get a job in the biology field with a biology degree, so they might as well study whatever they like, to qualify for that tier of mediocre jobs that just requires any 4-year degree.

I elected to stop at the bachelor's degree, because I could already tell that continuing beyond that in academia was very obviously not worth it. It wasn't just diminishing returns. After considering the money value of time, it was a negative return.

I am astonished at the huge number of supposedly smart people who will continue to suffer from institutional maltreatment for decades, willingly and without complaint, because they have somehow been brainwashed into thinking that they are lucky to have the opportunity to be worked like dogs without external recognition or remuneration.

Just don't do it. Get a bachelor's degree and go to work. If you wanted to be a doctor or lawyer, be a nurse or paralegal instead. Trade up later, if you can earn enough by working to pay for the extra degree, and you like doing that kind of work. My personal opinion is that nobody should be trying to pursue advanced degrees without ever doing any work in the real world first. When academia has to get its candidates to come back from the real world, rather than sinking its hooks into naive and gullible fresh graduates, a lot of the obvious problems would fix themselves.

  Univ: Hey there, chief, how about you come back to school for a rewarding career in academia?
  Dude: I have a job now.  I can buy stuff like *actual* furniture and food with *nutrition and flavor*.
  Univ: No worries.  We'll give you a living stipend of $18000!
  Dude: That is literally less than what my neighbor gets on welfare.
  Univ: Does your neighbor get to work with prestigious professors on cutting edge research?
  Dude: No.  Is that what I'd be doing?
  Univ: Yes!  A little.  And also doing most of the grunt work for the undergrad classes.
  Dude: But after I finish, I would get to be one of those professors, right?
  Univ: Welllllll.... possibly.  You'd be an adjunct for a while.  Maybe forever. [0]
  Univ: It wouldn't be prestigious if we just hired everybody!
  Dude: But they get paid well?
  Univ: Our associate profs get paid a whopping $75000 per year!  Full profs get $95000! [1]
  Dude: So less than someone with a bachelor's degree in the right field [2], or public servants in certain places [3].
  Dude: And that's if I even get a tenure-track job in the first place.
  Univ: Discounted membership at the university athletic center?
  Dude: Get lost.

[0] http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/04/the-adju... [1] https://www.higheredjobs.com/salary/salaryDisplay.cfm?Survey... [2] http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-th... [3] http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333051.htm

grandinj• 11 years ago

Isn't it obvious that this is just supply and demand at work? There are now too many people chasing a career in academia, which is driving the price down.

homulilly• 11 years ago

Maybe in part, but that ignores the fact demand for academia has gone down what with all the cuts to science and education.

As a society, we value research and knowledge less and less.

T-A2• 11 years ago

http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/Agencies_4.jpg

The bachelor’s to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men

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