Analyzing implicit gender bias in Optics and Photonics at the predoctoral stage in Spain
María-Baralida Tomás, Alba de las Heras, Beatriz Santamaría Fernández, Ana I. Gómez-Varela, Clara Benedi-Garcia, Martina Delgado-Pinar, Veronica Gonzalez-Fernandez, Rosa Ana Pérez-Herrera
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Base Information
Volume
V56 - N3 / 2023 Ordinario
Reference
51155
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.7149/OPA.56.3.51155
Language
English
Keywords
Gender bias, gender gap, optics and photonics, Ph.D. theses, women in science
Abstract
Gender biases play a very significant role in areas related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics(STEM). The association of gender with certain attributes, behaviors or professions leads to a lower proportion of women in STEM. In the field of Optics and Photonics, we can identify a gender disparity between technical or bio-clinical approaches within the same area when examining the authorship of the defended thesis. In this work, we quantify the impact of implicit gender bias in the Ph.D. programs related to Optics and Photonics in Spain. Here we present an exhaustive study about the UNESCO descriptors of the theses defended within 2015-2020 through the open-access repository TESEO, where all the doctoral theses of Spanish universities are compiled. The doctorate program of each thesis is considered and classified into a technical or bio-clinical category. With this classification, we quantify the number of male and female authors within each category, and the results show up a clear unbalance in most of the evaluated descriptors: men are more likely to choose technical doctorate programs, while women are mostly present in clinical or biological programs. This difference is seen even in descriptors where both genders are equally represented. On one side, women's underrepresentation is higher in "Physics", "Astronomy and Astrophysics", "Earth and Space Sciences", and "Technological Sciences". Oppositely, the areas of "Chemistry", "Life Sciences", and "Medical Sciences" show a greater gender-balanced distribution for most of the descriptors.
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