Construction of the global surveys of physicists and scientists (1999-2020): Gender and leadership

RACHEL IVIE; IGLE GLEDHILL; SILVINA PONCE DAWSON

Simposio; GST2021: Governing science and technology, governing through science and technology: what was at stake for women? (From the late 19th to the early 21st century); 2022

The representation of women in physics is among the lowest of the physical sciences in many countries. Reliable statistical data for women’s representation among degree holders in physics has been difficult to obtain (“Data on Women in Physics” 2019). Many countries lack statistical agencies that collect these data. Countries that have agencies collecting national data on women’s participation in science often aggregate the data to the level of “physical science.” Given the small size of physics compared to chemistry, these physical science data often obscure the extremely low participation of women in physics. The American Institute of Physics (AIP) collected data on women earning physics degrees in 21 countries for which reliable statistical data were available in 2006. Data with comparable years were difficult to obtain, so we had to go back as far as 1998-2000. In this article we concentrate on the efforts of international scientific unions, especially the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) to measure the inequalities women in physics face during education and employment. These efforts arose out of a very real concern about the opportunities that physics, and science more generally, are missing by their failure to recruit and retain women. To begin documenting the inequalities, IUPAP set up a working group that employed several surveys, first of women in physics, and then later of physicists in general, with the aim of documenting gender inequality. As we discuss, gender dynamics have influenced the development, organization, and leadership structure of IUPAP.