While more women than ever are following their passions and pursuing science education, the STEM field (science, technology, engineering & mathematics) remains a ‘leaky pipeline’, with less positive career outcomes for women.
In Africa, STEM is increasingly necessary for countries to remain economically and globally competitive. The African Union’s Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 (STISA 2024) emphasises the need for STEM in the eradication of hunger and achieving food security; prevention and control of diseases; wealth creation and mitigation of the climate crisis.
Despite substantial gains in controlling Africa’s infectious disease burden, Africa still has critical public health challenges to solve. As of 2019, Africa accounts for 675 million of the 2 billion people experiencing food insecurity worldwide, and it is estimated that 90 million women in Africa will be food-starved by 2050, as a result of climate change.
With seven of the 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change being African countries, we can’t ignore the gendered impact this will continue to have on health, sanitation and food security, among other development challenges. Women and girls are at higher risk of the effects of climate change, and yet they are largely underrepresented in the STEM fields driving climate change solutions.
In Africa, women represent 31.8 per cent of researchers, comparatively only minimally lower than the global averages of Central Asia (48.2 per cent), Latin America (45 per cent), Arab states (41 per cent) and North America (32.7 per cent).
One study has shown that African universities have recorded the least disparity between male and female graduates across STEM, medicine and social sciences & humanities. However, across the board, there is limited data on the state of African women in STEM.
Nonetheless, the attrition of women in STEM careers across Africa and globally remains a significant issue, pointing to the fact that improving access to STEM education alone is inadequate. Advancing gender equity in STEM requires merging access with efforts to ensure equitable academic and institutional success rates and outcomes, enabling more African women graduates to become globally competitive STEM leaders.
Work-life balance is one of the main drivers of women in STEM not progressing in their careers. Over their academic trajectory, women experience discriminatory workplace culture, long working hours and inflexible working schedules, to name a few.
Other important causes of attrition rates are issues of inequity of pay, lack of promotions and the demands of continuously publishing research and getting grants. Such institutional practices make it harder for women to fully participate in their programmes and careers, given that the burden of childcare still largely falls on women.
Gender-sensitive policies that address gender discrimination and foster a more gender-inclusive academic and work environment can enable more women to complete their PhDs on time, publish more research and remain as competitive as their male peers.
Such policies include: pay transparency; paid parenthood leave (both maternity and paternity); addressing bias in hiring/recruiting; targeted gender support programmes (eg, mentorship); child-friendly policies; and safeguarding and whistleblowing policies that protect the reporting of discrimination.
A study across 17 African countries demonstrated that attending an institution with gender-sensitive policies while pursuing a PhD was an enabling factor for women’s timely completion of their doctoral studies in STEM, as was working in a department where sexual harassment was perceived as uncommon.
The Developing Excellence in Leadership, Training and Science in Africa (DELTAS Africa) programme is a pioneering example of the impact of gender-sensitive policy and practice within STEM. DELTAS Africa supports African scientists and their institutions, through grant-making and leadership development, to generate world-class research.
The programme has a suite of progressive gender-sensitive policies, including maternity and paternity leave, adoption policy, travel policy (providing allowance for paid childcare) and flexible working hours, enabling both genders to have a more optimal work-life balance.
These policies have led to gender parity in enrolment and graduation rates, with DELTAS Africa achieving an 87:72 female-to-male enrolment rate in 2022. The women in the DELTAS Africa programme are advancing in their publication authorship, career prospects and overall success.
Just in 2020, three of the DELTAS Africa l consortiums (IDeAL, CARTA and SANTHE) had more women leading first-author publications. This is a significant trend, given that the data points towards fewer women publishing compared to male counterparts in STEM fields.
Notably, the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB-HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) consortia provided six travel awards to support parent-scientists to bring along their children to conferences and trainings.
Policies such as this are effectively addressing the barriers that prevent women scientists from pursuing the professional development opportunities needed to advance in their careers.
There is still a lack of data at the institutional and national level that impairs our ability to understand all the drivers of attrition within STEM, and the resulting impact of gender-sensitive policies.
Furthermore, institutional and funder-driven reporting culture that doesn’t factor gender-disaggregated data, along with the lack of funding for policy research within Africa make it difficult to institute gender-sensitive policies.
We need more African institutions, ministries and science funders to scale innovative interventions and policies that ensure African women in STEM are thriving, succeeding and advancing in their careers without these gendered challenges.
More resources need to be directed towards gender-disaggregated data and policy research. Such an evidenced-based approach will drive gender-sensitive policies that address attrition by reforming workplace culture and implementing policies that are contextually applicable, flexible and stakeholder informed.
Senior programme officer, Science for Africa Foundation
