DÉJÀ VU FOR WOMEN IN INDUSTRY
Women under 40 are closing the salary gap, but still face predecessors' career choices, challenges

BASF PHOTO

Industry is the number one employer of chemists who are ACS members in the workforce, employing just over two-thirds of the chemical workforce under 40. Women under 40 are slightly less likely to be employed in industry than men--65% versus 69% in 2000. A large proportion of these women are considered to be part of Generation X, born between 1964 and 1975.

In general, women aged 25 to 34 are much more likely to participate in the labor force compared with 25 years ago, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) economists Marisa DiNatale and Stephanie Boraas in their study "The Labor Force Experience of Women from 'Generation X.'" They are also more likely to have gone to college, to work more, and to pursue careers in higher paying occupations.

ACS collected data on the under-40 cohort of women chemists as part of the ACS study "Early Careers of Chemists," which was published in 2001 and was analyzed in C&EN (Dec. 24, 2001, page 39). This study was produced in 2001 by the ACS Department of Career Services under the guidance of the ACS Committee on Economic & Professional Affairs.

FIRST, A SNAPSHOT of the under-40 cohort of chemists. Over time, there has been a shift in the proportion of men and women in industry: an increasing presence of women in chemistry over time. This shift becomes apparent when one looks at the age cohorts. Among industrial chemists between ages 30 and 40, there are still more men than women. But under 30, women are a strong majority.

Women chemists under 40 are more likely than men to be single, 31% compared with 25%; this is partly a function of the younger median age of women. Women chemists are also more likely than men to be married to a scientist (chemist or other)--35% of women compared with 26% of men. Women industrial chemists under 40 are less likely than men to have a Ph.D., 37% compared with 54%. And women are more likely than men to have a bachelor's degree as their highest degree, 41% versus 28%.

According to the ACS data, women chemists in industry have positive feelings about their jobs. Three-fourths of women strongly agreed or agreed that their current position is satisfying, and 78% reported they were satisfied with the level of self-direction in their current position. Over two-thirds of women under 40 said they were pleased with their progress toward their career goals.

And they do have something to be pleased about. Women under 40 in industry have made significant inroads in research and management. Forty-six percent of men and 40% of women work in applied R&D. Similarly, 12% of men and 10% of women are in basic research. The gender gap has closed the most, however, in R&D management: 5% of women and just 6% of men are R&D managers.

"We keep talking about a leaky pipeline," says Carolyn Ribes, an analytical chemist at Dow Chemical and chair of the ACS Women Chemists Committee. "We have to stop looking backward at 40 years of data and focus on younger workers and the achievements within that cohort. There are still gaps, however, that need to be addressed."

The gender gap in salaries is also closing. The early careers study reports base pay for chemists with full-time permanent employment as of March 1, 2001, excluding extra professional income such as bonuses and salaries of self-employed, temporary, and part-time employees. In looking at differences in median salaries within primary work function, women under 40 in industry are approaching parity with men in some cases.

For example, in production/quality control, the gap is 2%; women earned a median salary in this area of $53,000 compared with $54,080 for men. In health and safety, the gap is slightly wider, with women earning 94% of their male counterparts' median salary--$58,129 compared with $62,000.

THE GENDER GAP in median salaries gets slightly wider in R&D. The salary earned by women in applied R&D is approximately 92% that of men--$67,000 versus $73,000. In basic R&D, women earn 88% of men's salary, with a median salary of $65,000 compared with $74,000 for men. In R&D management, women earn 89% of men's salary--women earned a median salary of $86,825 compared with $98,000 for men. In these instances, the median ages of men and women are within a year or two of each other. The earnings gap can be partly attributed to men's overall higher levels of education and differences in experience. Even taking these possible variables into consideration, a significant but narrowing gap in salaries remains between men and women.

"I'm very pleased to see the gap is narrowing," Ribes says. "Any progress is good."

Similar progress can be seen in the possibilities for balancing family and work. Eleven percent of industrial chemists under 40 experienced at least one career break or a hiatus of more than six months in their professional careers. More than three-fourths of those experienced only one career hiatus. Women's reasons are very much family oriented; women are more likely than men to leave work because of maternity and child care (30% of women versus 3% of men) or moving for a spouse (23% versus 6%). Comparatively, men are more likely than women to leave their jobs as a result of involuntary termination (29% versus 14% of women) and because of "other" reasons (40% versus 20%).

Men and women responding to the ACS survey do not differ significantly on whether their hiatus had any effect on their career. Fewer than half of the respondents say the break did not affect their careers, but more than one-third say it hurt their careers. Women are slightly more likely to say their careers were unaffected by the break (49% compared with 45% of men), a bit more likely to say that it helped their careers (19% versus 16%), and less likely to say their careers were hurt (32% versus 39%).

However, men and women continue to have different attitudes about their efforts to achieve a work/life balance. Balancing work and family life affects the hours people are willing to work, their choice of position, and their career goals. In the ACS study, men are more likely than women to say that balancing family and work had no effect on their careers--35% of men say it had no effect compared with 28% of women. Both men and women indicate that balancing work and family affected the hours they were willing to work and their choice of position and career goals. However, in balancing work and family, 47% of women compared with 39% of men say the number of hours they work was affected.

IN GENERAL, women in industry are less likely to prefer full-time, year-round employment than are men: 60% of women compared with 83% of men. That means that 40% of women--but only 17% of men--prefer some arrangement other than full-time employment.

Naturally, adding children to the mix affects many women's choices about full-time employment. Of those women with children, 56% say they want to work other than full time and 44% say they want to work full time.

Yet this preference among women to favor something other than full-time work is not only about children. Forty-six percent of the women who prefer not to work full time have no children.

Although women under 40 are generally positive about their employment experience, just half of them believe they can advance toward a better position from their current situation. Of these, 49% say they are likely to leave their current position in the next five years, and one-fifth say they are currently looking for another position.

And job-changing is more prevalent among younger chemists than among their predecessors. More than 60% of chemists under 40 have had more than one primary employer during their career, but, on average, they changed employers only once.

The reasons for changing employment vary, but the major reasons for both men and women are better pay and promotion, working conditions, and job location. Men are more likely than women to say that they changed jobs because of pay and promotion (27% of men and 19% of women) and job location (12% of men and 9% of women). Men and women are equally likely to say they changed jobs for family-related reasons.

In general, young chemists rate their academic training highly for important work activities, including data analysis, oral presentation skills, and writing. More than 85% agree that these are very important or important work activities. On the other hand, chemists say grant writing, foreign languages, and classroom teaching are not important to their work, and reported that the quality of training isn't very good.

One exception to this is management training: Although 67% of chemists rated management as very important or important, only 30% rated the quality of their training as very good or good. According to the early careers study, of all the training chemists receive, management training is perhaps the most important because it teaches skills necessary for career advancement and promotion into the higher paid managerial positions. Women are less likely than men to participate in management training, 23% compared with 29%.

THE ACS DATA are echoed in a study of Generation X professionals released in 2001 by Catalyst, a New York organization that works for the advancement of women in business. The goal was to examine common assumptions about this generation, which includes future business leaders, and their expectations of the workplace.

Catalyst found that Generation X seeks a work/life balance. These professionals place more importance on personal goals and reported difficulty in managing their work/life commitments. They want organizational support--such as flexibility and telecommuting--to help manage these commitments.

Women and men responding to the Catalyst study agreed that organizational and attitudinal barriers continue to hinder women's career advancements. Yet men are more likely to believe that there have been increases in advancement opportunities for women over the past 10 years, less likely than women to see the barriers, and less likely to accept the importance of women's advancement. This last finding is of particular concern because the majority of managers and executives are men.

"There is a disconnect between women's increasing participation in the workforce and their continued roles in the family," says Janel Kasper-Wolfe of the ACS Department of Career Services. "And these two factors are not changing at the same speed."

Although there have been improvements over the years, it is clear that more needs to happen to truly address the challenges that women under 40 face in the chemical industry. For now, change is the key, with women doing most of the changing.

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Copyright © 2003 American Chemical Society