the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 18 Aug 2026
Is Life in Academia Attractive to Women in the Geosciences?
Abstract. Despite decades of equity initiatives and increasing participation by women in STEM education, women remain significantly underrepresented in geoscience careers. This study moves beyond the conventional 'leaky pipeline' narrative to examine how female academics perceive the attractiveness of careers in the field. Drawing on qualitative data, we conceptualise attractiveness as a socially and institutionally produced orientation shaped by perceptions of career viability, work-life integration, and the kinds of academic lives regarded as possible and desirable. The findings show that academic careers in the geosciences are widely perceived as unattractive because dominant models of success are premised on mobility, precarious employment, and an ideal worker norm that remains at odds with caregiving responsibilities. Participants also described a lack of relatable role models, persistent gender bias, and everyday sexism that further erode the appeal of the discipline. Institutional policies intended to support work-life balance were frequently experienced as inadequate or symbolic, failing to address the structural inequalities embedded in academic work. The findings highlight the need for systemic transformation to create academic careers that are both viable and attractive to women in the geosciences.
- Preprint
(759 KB) - Metadata XML
- BibTeX
- EndNote
Status: open (until 13 Oct 2026)
- RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-3113', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Sep 2026 reply
-
RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2026-3113', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Sep 2026
reply
This work focuses on perceptions of attractiveness of geoscience academic careers using qualitative data. The work is well written and the quotes from participants are woven into a narrative that effectively highlights the wide range of issues that prevent women thriving in academia. I have some minor suggestions for improvements detailed below.
Line 74 – Is the focus on “young” women? I suggest removing the term young. While I understand the context, you don’t report age in your dataset nor do you define what is meant by the term young.
Line 83 – are there any demographics on the 58 exploratory survey participants? These would be good to include if you have them - there may be a systematic variation in participants responses based on gender, contract type, location etc that would be interesting to understand. Reading ahead I can see that some of this data is provided at L.146. It would make more sense to present all the demographic data in the same section or to be consistent in the way it’s reported – for example, you could present the demographic data for the focus group immediately before you present the results for the focus group, since you follow that format for the survey and workshop data.
Table 1 – most of the participants are post-doctoral researchers who may have a systematically different perspective than those on permanent contracts. I will be interested to see in the discussion if the responses from the two contract groups are compared.
Figure 1 – It would be good to know the maximum word frequency or have a scale or legend on the world cloud so that it is possible to determine what proportion of respondents used the most common words.
Figures 2 - 4 –The word “successful” should not be included in these word clouds since the word successful is part of the question that was put to the participants. It would be quite natural for a participant to repeat back part of the question in their response to you.
L154-159 and figures 2-4 – These terms need further explanation. For example, with the term “industry” I don’t know whether participants were saying that successful geoscientists work in industry or they do research with industry or applied to industry. Likewise, when they say research are they saying that a successful geoscientist has a job in research or is good at doing research? I find the terms need definition as there are multiple possible interpretations. Not just the two I mentioned here, all of the terms need definition. It would be good to have some quotes from the participants that clarify the way that these terms were employed.
L180 – Where are the iGeo workshop data? I can’t find them. They should be presented in a similar way to the iCRAG summit data – demographic data and word clouds.
4.1 – Suggest to include the list of questions that were put to the participants.
L185 – what do you mean by “highly gendered”? It is not obvious to me what is gendered about these statements. This term needs qualification and explanation. I also don’t understand your assessment of the model as narrow. How are you determining this? I am guessing you are comparing it to a broader model that you picture in your mind, but how do we know that your broader model is better or more accurate? Perhaps it would be better to delete this sentence, it seems to just be an opinion at this point because it is not qualified with any explanation or evidence.
L186-7- I don’t see any mention of metrics, research income, and international reputation in the word clouds. Is section 4.1 still discussing results from the workshop and survey? Or is this section from the main focus group? That needs to be made clear.
L197 –The assessment of “sustained conformity to a demanding and highly competitive model of productivity” is not warranted given the evidence provided. The quotes just say that you need to get grants, publish papers and get a permanent position – none of the quotes say this is demanding or competitive. I don’t think this is an accurate summary of what the participant’s report. If the participant’s said this you should provide the data (quotes) that indicate it. I note in the next sentence you say that one participant highlighted it was competitive. This quote should come before your assessment. If only one person said something like this I don’t think it would be accurate you can imply that all participants or the majority of participants thought it - you currently state in the sentence “Participants understood… route to permanence was perceived as requiring sustained conformity etc.” which implies multiple or most participants thought that.
L200 – Again, I don’t think this summary reflects the data. They don’t say anything about individual vs group and most of the quotes provided don’t suggest that productivity needs to be perpetual and is unsustainable. I suggest using quotes that better reflect this observation/summary, or changing the summary to better reflect the quotes.
Typos or formatting errors:
Line 48 – there is a “50” at the beginning of the line that needs to be deleted
L316 – errant “320” in text
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-3113-RC2
Viewed
| HTML | XML | Total | BibTeX | EndNote | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 74 | 28 | 58 | 160 | 55 | 56 |
- HTML: 74
- PDF: 28
- XML: 58
- Total: 160
- BibTeX: 55
- EndNote: 56
Viewed (geographical distribution)
| Country | # | Views | % |
|---|
| Total: | 0 |
| HTML: | 0 |
| PDF: | 0 |
| XML: | 0 |
- 1
Dear Editor,
Please find attached my comments with respect to the manuscript "Is Life in Academia Attractive to Women in the Geosciences?" submitted by
Dr Valerie Ledwith and Dr Audrey Morley.
Upon reviewing the manuscript, my recommendation is to accept the manuscript subject to minor revisions, pending availability of potential data and/or acknowledgement of limitations of the dataset.
Best,
Reviewer