Keeping women in science requires changing the conditions in which people study, train, and work—not asking women to adapt to unfair systems. Institutions can make progress by improving equitable access to resources, making policies usable, addressing disrespect and harassment, and measuring whether changes improve recruitment, retention, and advancement.
Here, “science” includes the broader STEMM fields: science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine. Women’s representation varies across fields, career stages, and seniority, so no single figure captures retention across the whole enterprise.
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Why a single representation figure cannot measure retention
UNESCO’s 2024 report, Changing the Equation: Securing STEM Futures for Women, says women and girls make up a third or less of students, employees, and innovators in STEM. Those are broad groups, not a single, consistently measured population. The figure is not a retention rate, and it does not show how many women leave a particular field or career stage.
To understand retention, an institution needs to examine its own pipeline: who enters, who remains at each stage, who advances, and where disparities emerge. Those patterns may differ by discipline and by intersecting identities, including race and ethnicity. A global headline cannot substitute for that local picture.
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Why the responsibility belongs to institutions
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine describes women’s underrepresentation as a systemic problem involving structural inequities, bias, discrimination, and harassment. Its 2020 report, Promising Practices for Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine, says its focus is “not on ‘fixing the women,’” but on systemic change to mitigate conditions that undermine women’s education and careers in STEMM.
This framing shifts the question from how women can endure an environment to what the institution controls: the distribution of opportunities and resources, the design and use of policies, workplace norms, and accountability when conduct standards are breached.
What institutions can change
Make access to resources fair and transparent
Access to equipment, funding, training, professional opportunities, and institutional information can shape who is able to do good work and progress. The National Academies’ finding 4-4 recommends “fair and equitable access to resources for all employees and students,” including equal knowledge of institutional resources and transparency about how resources are allocated.
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Design policies around varied needs and career stages
Institutions should consider different personal and family needs when setting policies, then check whether eligible students and employees can realistically use them. Monitoring awareness and uptake can reveal obstacles that policy documents alone will not show. If a policy is rarely used or fails to meet needs, revise it rather than treating its existence as proof that the issue is solved.
Set and enforce standards for respectful conduct
Respectful environments require more than broad statements of values. The National Academies recommends widely shared conduct standards and sanctions for disrespect, incivility, and harassment. People need to understand what conduct is unacceptable and what consequences follow when standards are violated.
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Address insecure work and care responsibilities
Job stability can affect whether a research career is sustainable. Australia’s Office of the Chief Scientist, in its STEM Career Pathways report released in 2024, identifies insecure work and short-term research funding as retention barriers. It also reports that women are less likely to have permanent full-time work and more likely to hold fixed-term contracts. These findings describe the Australian context; they should not be treated as a universal workforce pattern.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to build a retention effort that can improve
The National Academies recommends an ongoing cycle: understand the institution’s circumstances, act on identified problems, measure outcomes, and formalize approaches that work. That is more useful than assuming a single program will fit every department or career stage.
- Diagnose the local pattern. Gather quantitative and qualitative information on recruitment, retention, and advancement. Look at transitions between stages and ask people about their experiences. Examine results by discipline and relevant intersecting identities so that overall averages do not conceal different barriers.
- Choose an action tied to a specific barrier. Use the findings to identify what needs to change—for example, resource allocation, access to policies, conduct standards, or job stability. Set a clear target group and career stage rather than applying a generic intervention everywhere.
- Check whether people can access the action. Tell eligible people about policies and resources, make procedures practical to use, and monitor awareness and uptake. Low use may indicate an access problem, not a lack of need.
- Measure again and adapt. Reassess the relevant outcomes after implementation, using both numbers and people’s accounts. Compare results with the original problem and check whether benefits reach the groups the action was intended to support.
- Make effective practice durable. The National Academies identifies committed leadership, human and financial resources, accountability, an understanding of local context, and an intersectional approach as conditions that support implementation. When an approach is effective, embed it in policy, assign responsibility, and provide resources rather than leaving it dependent on a temporary project.
Where mentoring fits—and where it falls short
Mentoring, networking, and support groups can help people build professional connections. They are useful supports, but they do not by themselves change who receives resources, whether workplace policies work, or how institutions respond to misconduct.
The UK Government Equalities Office’s 2019 review, Women’s Progression in the Workplace: Main Report, found that the measured effects of mentoring and networking on progression were at best modest. It also noted that studies often did not account for barriers that kept women from participating. Institutions should therefore pair these supports with changes to organizational norms and processes, equitable opportunities, and policies that address care responsibilities.
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How to judge whether an intervention is worth keeping
Before adopting a program or policy, assess whether it responds to a documented local barrier and whether the people affected can use it. A practical review should ask:
- Does the action change institutional conditions, provide individual support, or do both?
- Is access equitable and practical for the people it is meant to serve?
- Does it address the relevant discipline, career stage, and locally identified barrier?
- Are recruitment, retention, and advancement outcomes measured over time?
- Are outcomes examined by discipline and intersecting identities, rather than only as an institution-wide average?
Use the answers to adjust the approach. The available findings do not establish one intervention as the strongest causal solution for every discipline, career stage, or group. Evaluation should guide local decisions instead of treating a popular program as proof of progress.
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