Female Brain Drain: More Than Half of Women Scientists Quit, Report Says

As a physics graduate of Harvard University, I was struck by a new Harvard Business Review report on the dramatic departures of high-level working women from jobs in science, engineering, and technology. The numbers are mindboggling.

On the lower rungs of the career ladder, 41% of highly qualified scientists, engineers and technologists are women. Over time, more than half (52%) of these women quit their jobs. If employers could retain just a quarter of the women who leave, they would add 220,000 people to the labor force.

``Most strikingly, this female exodus is not a steady trickle. Rather, there seems to be a key moment in women's lives -- in their mid to late thirties -- when most head for the door,’’ according to the report authors. They cite five factors: a hostile workplace culture, isolation, uncomfortable work rhythms, extreme jobs, and the route to advancement being kept secret. ``Because women in two-income families still bear the brunt of household management, few are able to sustain those pressures,’’ the authors say.

Hmm. Is it just a coincidence that those are prime childbearing years? If you left a career in the sciences, please tell us why.

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