This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Today, women are more likely than men to begin an academic career in psychology. Nevertheless, they leave research substantially more often, particularly during the first years after entering the field.
This is the finding of an international study by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. The analysis of more than 78,000 academic career trajectories suggests that it is not access to academia but long-term retention that poses the greater challenge for women. Unlike in many science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, women have for years constituted the majority of early-career researchers in psychology.
Nevertheless, they remain significantly underrepresented in professorships and other senior positions. The new study is the first to investigate, through a global longitudinal analysis, when these differences emerge over the course of academic careers. "In psychology, women are well represented among doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers, but far fewer reach the highest career levels," says lead author Xinyi Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
"We wanted to understand when women are more likely to leave academia and which factors are associated with this pattern." The study is published in the journal American Psychologist. For the study, the research team analyzed the publication histories of 78,216 psychologists worldwide who began their academic careers between 2000 and 2014. The analysis was based on the Scopus database.
Scientific publication activity served as an indicator of an active research career. Researchers who had not published any scientific work for at least five years were considered to have left active research. The analysis first confirms a well-known trend: More than 60% of new entrants into psychological research are now women.
Yet, on average, women remain scientifically active for a shorter period than men. The largest differences appear between the fourth and sixth years after a researcher's first scientific publication. During this period, the risk of leaving research rises substantially overall—but more sharply for women than for men.
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