Women in the Physics and STEM Pipelines: Recruiting, Retaining, and Returning in the Aftermath of a Global Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Designing strategies to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) best practices have become a mainstream topic of conversation in the workplace. Surface-level changes are questioned, and more consequential actions and practices are sought out by employees (administrators and faculty in higher education) and their clientele (students) in industry and in academia. Both the academy and the corporate world have launched initiatives showcasing their efforts to recruit and retain diverse workforces within the STEM pipeline [1 - 2]. Still, various studies have demonstrated that women were more likely removed from the workforce or faced significant career setbacks as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. With a focus on women in Physics, this paper will provide a synthesis of the major research findings on the potential impact of the pandemic on both new and existing inequities faced by women on STEM career trajectories. These findings include those enlightened by informal discussions with women physicists at varying stages of their careers. We seek to uncover and identify how the pandemic may have further exacerbated those inequities already present in the workplace. By comparing and contrasting the underlying inequities and the role that the pandemic may have played in the corporate and academic workforces, we will explore and identify potential DEI solutions and best practices that organizations and institutions might implement to better support and retain their current workforces. For example, the pandemic has forced organizations and individuals to rethink work-life integration as they have attempted to achieve a new balance in what is often referred to as the new normal. Though neither academic nor industry STEM fields have yet found gender parity in their respective workforces, through a cross-sector comparison, this paper will address a fundamental shift that needs to occur in the way effort and performance is measured to retain and return female talent into the STEM pipeline. It is both timely and critical to take more immediate action to address gender-related DEI issues and their impact both pre- and post-pandemic on women in Physics and STEM career paths. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022.