Last fall, Subra Suresh, director of the National Science Foundation, announced the “NSF Career-Life Balance Initiative,” a 10-year plan to provide greater work-related flexibility to women and men in research careers. Among the best practices that NSF will expand Foundation-wide are ones that will allow researchers to delay or suspend their grants for up to one year in order to care for a newborn or newly adopted child or fulfill other family obligations. This initiative is designed to maximize current NSF policy to facilitate scientists’ reentry into their professions with minimal loss of momentum.
“Too many young women scientists and engineers get sidetracked or drop their promising careers because they find it too difficult to balance the needs of those careers and the needs of their families,” said Suresh. “This new initiative aims to change that, so that the country can benefit from the full range and diversity of its talent.”
Women currently earn 41% of PhD degrees in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), but make up only 28% of tenure-track faculty in those fields. According to NSF, reducing the rate in which women leave their STEM careers is especially important in the quest for gender equality because women in STEM jobs earn 33% more than those in non-STEM occupations and the wage gap between women and men in STEM jobs is smaller than in other fields.
NSF is also calling upon universities and research institutes to adopt similar policies for their employees and grantees.
