Is There a Land of Equality for Physicists?

Using data from the Global Survey of Physicists (GSP), we examine differences in access to resources and opportunities for men and women on a country-by-country basis. We also look at the effect of family and childrearing responsibilities on career progress. Resources include funding and lab space, and opportunities include presenting one’s research and being acknowledged as a scientific colleague. With the exception of Germany, we find that women have significantly fewer resources or opportunities – or both – in every country for which we had enough respondents to conduct the analysis. In addition, we find that women report slower career advancement after becoming mothers, while men reported that becoming fathers had no significant effect on their careers. The relationship between career progress and becoming a parent was significant in every country for which we had enough respondents to conduct the analysis. This was a feature article in a special issue of Physics in Canada examining women in physics.

NOTE: This version includes a correction in Table 2