South Korea can help female research leaders

How much do we need to improve the gender parity in South Korea? A mathematician’s insights on the lack of gender equality in research

Measures like these are motivators for improving gender diversity in research, but new strategies are needed if South Korea is to achieve gender parity. Female representation at academic conferences needs be improved, for instance, and the government and funding agencies need to make more proactive measures to increase the number of women PIs in medium- and large-scale research projects.

“People just believe that there are some disciplines that are better than others,” says Alex James, a mathematician at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, who led one the latest studies on the phenomenon. “And it turns out that ones that we think are a bit rubbish are all full of women.”

Data to highlight potential biases is not sufficient according to McGee. “One has to dismantle the field and rebuild it with women and women of colour leading the effort, but people do not want to give up or share their power,” she says.

In 2015, researchers discovered that women were under-represented in fields where success was thought to require raw, innate talent, such as mathematics or philosophy, compared with fields in which people thought success could be achieved through hard work.

South Korea’s future depends on the number of female researchers in science and technology: A critical analysis of the PBRF, an independent panel discussion

Rachael Murray, a biomedical scientist at the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, says that the studies in this area highlight the complexities involved. She says they don’t fully understand where all the issues are. She adds that institutions and funding bodies have an obligation to look thoroughly at their data — which are often not accessible to researchers — and identify problems that might need addressing.

The study conducted by James and her colleagues prompted discussions at the Ministry of Education in New Zealand. Katrine Sutich, the general manager for tertiary and evidence policy at the ministry in Wellington, says an independent panel that reviewed the PBRF has met with the researchers and has taken their findings into account.

Faced with the fastest declining population in the world, South Korea must do more to bolster the ranks of its highly skilled workforce. The country’s future success hinges on the success of the policies and initiatives necessary to improve the recruitment, retention and upward mobility of women researchers.

The amount of research funding that is available to them is equally as important as the number of PIs. In South Korean universities, the average amount of government funding won by male PIs in science and technology areas is 165 million won (US$119,393). 67 million won is the figure for women.