Keri Sather-Wagstaff
$150,000
Alex M Helman
National Academy of Sciences
District Of Columbia
Directorate for STEM Education (EDU)
ADVANCE
The COVID-19 pandemic has served to exacerbate the challenges facing students and professionals in STEM with family caregiving responsibilities, while also creating a greater sense of urgency to address longstanding issues. Research indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on the careers of STEM professionals with family caregiving responsibilities and that without evidence-based action the scientific enterprise could see additional attrition of women, especially women of color, from these fields. To respond to this need, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will carry out a comprehensive consensus study that will outline promising and innovative policies and practices for supporting STEM students and professionals with family caregiving responsibilities, including childcare and/or eldercare. The study will examine how the pandemic may be contributing to increased attrition from STEM fields and inequities in opportunities for advancement into leadership roles, among other impacts, and will culminate in a report that will provide leaders in academia and government with evidence-based guidance on how to implement equitable policies and programs to support the retention, re-entry, and advancement of STEM students and professionals with family caregiving responsibilities. The study will take an intentionally intersectional approach and consider how the intersection of multiple identities (e.g. race, gender, age) can affect the nature and extent of caregiving responsibilities. The study will also investigate how intersectional identities affect access to and impact of policies and practices intended to support work-life balance. The study will explore the current patchwork of policies on this issue and detail strategies to promote culture change in STEM. It will also identify areas where greater coordination within and across the academic and governmental sectors is needed. To carry out this study, the National Academies will assemble a multidisciplinary, ad hoc committee of experts. The committee will include a diverse range of individuals recognized for their roles leading and evaluating effective policies, practices, and programs for supporting family caregivers and work-life balance in STEM. The National Academies will also seek representation from leading scholars and researchers in industrial and organizational psychology, human resource management, labor law, economics, and other relevant fields of study. The committee will carry out a comprehensive review of the published, peer-reviewed and grey literature, which will be augmented by original qualitative data collection and case study analysis to address gaps in the available research. The committee’s work will be informed by several public information-gathering meetings, as well as by closed session deliberations during which the committee will draft the report. The report will then go through the National Academies review process before publication and dissemination. The study leverages NSF funds with funds from NIH, NIST, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation, and NASA (pending). NSF support for the study comes from the Directorate for STEM education (EDU), the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM (EES), ADVANCE: Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions, and the Office of Integrated Activities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.