Bias against parents in science hits women harder

Abstract

Worldwide, parenthood remains a major driver for the reduced participation of women in the job market, where discrimination stems from people's biases against mothers, based on stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding the vision of motherhood in our society. In academia, parenthood may be perceived as negatively affecting scientists' commitment and dedication, especially women's. We conducted a survey amongst Brazilian scientists and found that mothers self-reported a higher prevalence of negative bias in their workplace when compared to fathers. The perception of a negative bias was influenced by gender and career status, but not by race, scientific field or number of children. Regarding intersections, mothers with less than 15 years of hiring reported having suffered a higher rate of negative bias against themselves. We discuss implications of these results and suggest how this negative bias should be addressed in order to promote an equitable environment that does not harm women in science.

Keywords: Education; Science, technology and society.

Fig. 1. Self-perception of negative bias towards parents in academia.

Results are shown in percentage by the reported gender of the respondents (male, top line; female, bottom line), using a 5-point Likert scale, where 1 meant “I completely disagree”, and 5 “I completely agree”.

Fig. 2. Total score predictors.

Forest plot depicting the predictor’s estimates (95% confidence interval) of the regression model with the total score of self-perception bias against parents as the dependent variable.