At the beginning of October every year, there is a news that is heard periodically.
That's the Nobel Prize winners.
Who will win the Nobel Prize this year?
I wonder, can a Korean win this time?
And I look forward to it with a 'maybe' heart.
There are often articles interviewing Korean scientists who are mentioned as candidates for medals.
And as always, this year's Nobel Prize season has arrived.
The prizes for Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Chemistry, and Literature have already been announced.
What is noteworthy about this Nobel Prize is that it awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to scientists who paid attention to the climate crisis.
Now, it really seems that climate change is right before our noses.
Let me tell you another story for a moment.
Just think of the names of 5 female athletes in 5 seconds.
In addition to Ansan, who received attention at the Tokyo Olympics, Kim Yuna, Jang Mi-ran, Son Yeon-jae, Ji So-yeon, Lee Sang-hwa, etc…
You can think of female athletes more easily than you might think.
So, shall we recall the name of a female scientist in 5 seconds this time?
It may not be easy if you give 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds.
It seems that there aren't many female scientists whose names come to mind, except for Mrs. Curie.
Today's Mabu News is the second part of the story of gender equality following the gender equality of the last Olympics.
This time, I prepared how far gender equality has come in the scientific world.
So today's question is this.
“How many women have ever won a science Nobel Prize?”
23 out of 631
Only 3.6%. Fewer than 5% of the three Nobel Prizes in science have been awarded to women. A total of 631 Nobel Prize winners have been awarded in physics, chemistry, and physiology/medicine, of which only 23 are women. If you look at the graph below, you will see the difference more clearly. I visualized Nobel Prize winners by gender every five years from 1901. Four prizes in physics, seven in chemistry, and twelve in physiology and medicine were all awarded. Marie Curie, as we know it, was awarded the Nobel Prize twice in physics and chemistry. Marie Curie is the only scientist, male and female, to win two science awards.
Did you know that even that Marie Curie almost never received her first Nobel Prize? It's because she's a woman. There was a perception that women could not be admitted to a science academy that had only male members, and that Marie Curie, who was not a member of the academy, could not be awarded a Nobel Prize. It was only after her husband, Pierre Curie, continued to file their joint prime ministerial petitions that the couple's joint prime minister was possible. A similar situation was observed with the second Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1911. After winning the Chemistry Prize, he was nominated for a member of the French Academy of Sciences, but lost by two votes. And the academy passes a resolution that women cannot forever be members of the academy of sciences. This resolution lasted until 1962.
Marie Curie isn't the only one who's been discriminated against.
Maria Mayer became the second woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics after Marie Curie in 1963 for her research on the structure of the shell of an atomic nucleus.
After working as a researcher at various universities, I became a contract professor, and I continued my research as a part-time senior researcher at a national research institute.
He was appointed as a full professor three years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize.
Barbara McClintock is a scientist who is said to be the king of corn genetic research. After receiving her Ph.D., she looked everywhere to continue her research, but no university or research institute accepted him.
Just because Barbara is a woman.
It was in the late 1960s that the issue of women in science and technology was raised in earnest in American college towns.
As the women's movement became active in the United States in the 1960s, voices calling for gender equality in the science and technology community increased.
Female scientists showed the gender ratio of science and technology in numbers and published a report.
And as they continued their rallies, they constantly raised their voices against discrimination.
Eventually, in 1972, the Amendment to the Gender Equality Constitution was passed.
Women's right to education and equal employment is finally legally granted.
Gone are the days when women no longer had an education because they were women.
Today, 40 years after that, how far has gender equality in science and technology come?
Let's focus on gender equality in academia, that is, a university that can be both the beginning of science and technology and the destination for some.
Academia is closed to women?
Professor Ester Duflo, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019, said this. “The reason why so few women receive the Nobel Prize is not because the awardees discriminate against women, but because the channels of academia are not sufficiently open to the minority,” he said. For reference, the Nobel Prize in Economics has the lowest number of women awarded among Nobel Prizes. There are only two of them, including Professor Ester.
Using data from University Alerts and Education Statistics Service, we looked at the academic world with the ratio of teachers in Korean universities (four-year general colleges). In 2021, the ratio of teachers at universities in Korea is 1.9 to 1. When there is one woman, the number of men is doubled. For full-time faculty, such as professors, associate professors, and assistant professors, who can be called full-time faculty, the ratio increases to 2.9 to 1. On the other hand, for non-regular teachers, such as adjunct professors, visiting professors, and lecturers, the ratio decreases to 1.4 to 1. In part-time instructors, it's almost one-to-one. The ratio of women in contract workers is higher than in regular workers, and the ratio of women in part-time jobs is higher than that of contract workers.
Even among full-time faculty, there is a clear gender difference. If you look at professors, associate professors, and assistant professors, you can see that the higher the professor's status, the more men there are. The ratio of full professors in 2021 is 4.6 to 1. The gender ratio of associate professors is reduced to a better level than that. There were 4,303 females and 9,847 males, which is 2.3 times higher. As for assistant professors, the ratio of women increases, and the sex ratio is 1.8 to 1, which is close to the most similar level.
Looking at the department, the ratio of professors in the engineering department shows the biggest difference.
7.8 males compared to 1 female.
Next came the natural series with a score of 2.6 to 1.
There is definitely a male bias in science and engineering, right?
The places where the ratio of 1:1 was equally quantitative were the education departments and the arts and sports departments.
Of the 2,112 departments of 166 universities nationwide (including branch schools and campuses) that have engineering-related departments, 915 departments, nearly half of which had no female teachers were analyzed.
Even Seoul National University does not have female teachers in 7 departments as of 2021.
Of course, this is much improved compared to the past.
If you look at the situation in 2011, 10 years ago, the ratio of teachers in the engineering department is about 24.9 to 1.
The number of female science and engineering students is increasing
Of course, we should not assume that academia is discriminating against women simply by quantitative comparison.
Because, in the first place, there are more men than women in places like engineering colleges.
Of course, there will be a lot of male students going on to graduate school.
That is why there are many men who apply to become teachers.
So, we looked at past undergraduate and graduate student data.
First, let's look at the undergraduate alumni data.
In 1990, about 2,000 female undergraduate students graduated from engineering departments.
In 2000, that number increased to 9,176, and as of 2020, it is around 19,955.
Naturally, there are far more male undergraduates.
In 1990, there were over 28,000 male engineering students, and now there are over 60,000.
Looking at the gender ratio, it increased to a whopping 13.9 in 1990, but has now decreased to a level of 3.2.
Let's look at master's and doctoral graduates. In 1990, there were 158 women and 4,170 men with master's and doctoral degrees in engineering. There was a 26-fold difference between men and women. Ten years later, in 2000, the ratio had decreased to 11.9 men per woman. Last year, it was much better than that, down to 4 to 1. The number of female engineering students is increasing, and the number of graduates with master's and doctoral degrees is also increasing. Even after graduating, there will be a time lag until the appointment of a professor, so we will consider that as well. It is said that it takes about 7.1 years as of 2017. If so, let's use this data to compare the ratio of master's and doctoral graduates around 2014, about 7 years ago, with current teachers. The gender ratio of graduates for master's and doctoral degrees in 2014 was 1 female to 5 males. This is quite a difference from the 7.8 to 1 ratio of teachers in 2021.
It is practically difficult to penetrate full-time professors with a master's degree. And since it takes more time to become a full-time professor than in the past, let's take a little longer and look at the data from 10 years ago. Let's compare the gender ratio of doctoral graduates with the current full-time faculty ratio data. The ratio of PhD graduates in engineering in 2011 is 10.0 to 1. So, what is the current ratio of full-time engineering professors in 2021? 13.6 to 1. Even if we look more closely, the ratio of full-time professors is still not keeping up with the ratio of doctoral graduates.
In addition, in the natural sciences, since 2000, female undergraduate students have reversed males. The graph above shows the gender ratio of engineering and natural science undergraduate students. Since 2000, the natural college has more women. Of course, if you look at each department, there are some departments with an overwhelmingly high male ratio like the Department of Physics, and some with an overwhelmingly high female ratio like the Food and Nutrition Department. In general, unlike engineering colleges, natural colleges have more female students. Not only undergraduate students, but also masters and doctoral students, there is not much difference between men and women. The male to female ratio in 2020 is 52 to 48, and although there are still many males, it is almost equal.
Let's compare the ratio of graduates from the university of natural sciences to the ratio of current teachers with a time lag. Seven years ago, in 2014, the gender ratio of graduates for master's and doctoral degrees was 1.1 males compared to 1 female. However, the current gender ratio of teachers is 2.6 to 1, which is the second highest male ratio after engineering colleges. As with engineering colleges, if we increase the time lag and strictly compare the data from 10 years ago with the doctoral data, the ratio of graduates from the natural sciences 10 years ago is 1.7 to 1. However, the current ratio of full-time teachers is 4.0 to 1, which is a big difference.
Half of the university students are women, but there is still a larger proportion of male teachers.
Although the number of female science and engineering undergraduates and graduates with master's and doctoral degrees is increasing, the increase in the number of teachers is slow.
University decisions are also dominated by men.
As we looked at the ratio of teachers at the beginning, there is a situation where the ratio of women is high in contract and part-time jobs with unstable positions.
In order to break the glass ceiling of universities, the government also decided to increase the ratio of female professors sequentially to 25% by 2030.
Let's break the glass ceiling, or even gold!
The situation is not easy from the perspective of women in science and engineering, even if they go on a career path other than academia.
There are certainly more female graduates from science and engineering fields than in the past, but the employment rate is also lower than that of males.
Moreover, the percentage of women who are promoted to the managerial level and manager level is not high even if they get a job.
Looking at the data surveyed in 2019, looking at the gender of all managers, only 10.6% are women.
It would start with making a gold ceiling like this.
We will need a policy not only to raise the ratio, but also to reduce the underlying inequality.
Marie Curie, the first two-time Nobel laureate, Maria Mayer, who studied the structure of the shell of the nucleus, and Barbara, a geneticist who shared her life with corn. In addition to this, Rachel Carson, a marine biologist and author of Silent Spring, which was not introduced in the letter but warned about the destruction of the environment by pesticides, and Catherine Johnson, NASA's first African-American cashier and hidden figure in space development... Women's footprints in history are clear.
Of course, we're not just going to remember this exceptional female scientist. It is important to reevaluate women scientists who have been hidden in the existing science and technology history, but at the same time, we must make efforts to break the barriers of discrimination we feel. Because there are an absolute majority of ordinary people like us who are silently working in the field of life without anything special. This is the letter Mabu News has prepared for you today. How far do you think gender equality has come in science and technology? Have we become more equal than we were in the past? Or is there still a long way to go? Is the quota system necessary to raise the gap? I'm curious about your thoughts. Please leave a comment if you have something we missed or would like to discuss with you! (*This article is an edited article from the Witchcraft Newsletter)
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Written by
: Hye-Min Ahn
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: Jun-Seok Ahn
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:
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Kyung Kim, Young-
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