Surveying physicists

Surveying physicists. Stark differences exist for men and women in physics, according to a mammoth international survey led by the American Institute of Physics (AIP). Nearly 15 000 physicists from 130 countries participated in the survey, which asked in eight languages about education, careers, and home life.

Among the survey’s findings is that women’s careers are more likely than those of men to be negatively affected by having children; only 32% of women but 65% of men said their work or career did not change significantly because of being a parent.

Around the world, female physicists are disadvantaged in a wide range of measures of professional success—indeed, in every measure probed. Women have less office and lab space and less funding than men. They are less likely to be the editor of a journal, serve on committees for grant agencies, or give invited talks at conferences. The survey found that women were less likely than men to rate their relationship with their doctoral adviser as “excellent.”

“We have known that women face difficulties. Now we know what the problems are,” says survey coauthor Rachel Ivie of AIP. In April she presented preliminary findings in South Africa at the fourth International Conference on Women in Physics, which was sponsored by the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

For an overview of the Global Survey of Physicists, see http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/intltrends.html .