Number of Female PhDs Doubled in 10 Years... Crying Over Career Breaks and Glass Ceilings [Reading Science]

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] Although the number of female PhDs in South Korea has doubled over the past decade, they are still being marginalized in research due to career interruptions and glass ceiling issues.

According to the report "Changes in Perceptions of Research Environment and Performance of Female Researchers" by the National Research Foundation of Korea on the 6th, the number of newly graduated female PhDs in Korea increased nearly twofold from 2,981 in 2009 to 5,800 in 2018.

The proportion of women among all new PhD graduates also rose by about 7.8 percentage points, from 30.1% to 37.9%. However, they remain marginalized in research institutes, universities, and companies. The proportion of female full-time faculty members at universities increased slightly from 19% in 2009 to 24.9% in 2020, but male full-time faculty members still overwhelmingly dominated at 75.1% as of 2020.

Most research funding is also held by men. In 2009, the average research funding per male full-time faculty member was approximately 71 million KRW, whereas for female full-time faculty members it was only 24.8 million KRW. Notably, the funding gap between men and women has widened. The per capita research funding gap was about 42.2 million KRW in 2009 but increased to approximately 66.75 million KRW by 2020. However, the gap in the proportion of research principal investigators by gender has somewhat narrowed. In 2009, 51.8% of men were principal investigators compared to 40.5% of women, but by 2020, this improved to 58.8% for men and 51.2% for women.

Research output varied depending on domestic and international academic journals. For domestic journals, women published more papers per person than men. In 2009, men published 0.54 papers per person, and women 0.56; in 2020, men published 0.45 papers, while women published 0.64. However, the opposite was true for international specialized journals, where men published about twice as many papers as women. In 2009, men published 0.27 papers and women 0.13; in 2020, men published 0.44 papers and women 0.27, showing a similar trend.

Regarding this, the report pointed out, "Female researchers are more likely to bear the primary responsibility for household chores or childcare after marriage, requiring more time and energy, making it difficult to balance work and family." It added, "Due to a preference in universities and research institutions for male researchers who can focus on research activities without being constrained by family responsibilities based on performance-oriented criteria, female researchers are likely to experience relative disadvantages in obtaining stable positions such as full-time faculty appointments."