School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses
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ItemBrave new world: exploring the non-academic career pathways of women astronomy PhD graduates( 2019)Policies designed to retain women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) tend to focus on the idea of the leaky pipeline, a model for retaining women by minimising the structural barriers that force them to leave. Retention during doctoral candidature and early career is seen as necessary for increasing women’s participation at higher levels within the sciences, and to create management and institutional equity and change. Problematically, however, this policy approach, and its focus on structural problems within the sciences, fails to consider the complexity of women’s lives, and minimises the levels of agency attributed to decision-making processes, particularly in relation to leaving their field of study. The expectation that, having attained a PhD in the sciences, women will automatically wish to stay in the academic STEM pipeline is limiting. Current doctoral programs fail to adequately recognise the importance of non-academic career pathways as legitimate career options outside the academy. This thesis addresses one of the fundamental assumptions about PhD education and policy; that women who undertake a PhD want to pursue academic careers and that non-academic careers are potentially a second choice. Through a case study of women who have engaged in doctoral research in Australia, this thesis argues that measures put in place by gender equity policies tend to benefit those who are directly employed in academic research, while ignoring the female graduates who move out of academia. By focusing resources only on retaining women in postgraduate programs, institutions are in fact restricting women’s science careers by limiting training opportunities and providing inadequate information on non-academic career choice, which in turn creates a perceived stigma about leaving the academy. By applying a feminist lens to a qualitative sociological study, this thesis examines the experiences of PhD educated women astronomers as they narrate their pathways into and out of academia. It sheds a particular light on transitional experiences and demonstrates the importance of agency in work-related decisions and the complex factors that influence women's career choice. This thesis concludes that moving beyond a linear understanding of the pathways of women in STEM, towards an understanding of how women navigate complex labour market pathways outside the expected academic norm, will enable the development of better policy and programs to support women interested in the STEM fields.