SF2A 2022

#  Commission Femmes et Astronomie de la SF2A :
Women participation in French Astronomy

Rhita-Maria Ouazzani  LESIA, Observatoire de Paris, Université PSL, Sorbonne
Université, Université Paris Cité, CNRS, 5 place Jules Janssen, 92195 Meudon,
France  Caroline Bot  Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Observatoire
Astronomique de Strasbourg, UMR7550, F–67000 Strasbourg, France  Sylvie Brau-
Nogué  IRAP, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, CNES, Toulouse, France
Danielle Briot  Observatoire de Paris, 61 avenue de l’Observatoire, 75014
Paris, France  Patrick de Laverny  Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la
Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange,F-06304 Nice, France  Nadège Lagarde
Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, Univ. Bordeaux, CNRS, B18N, allée
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 33615 Pessac, France  Nicole Nesvadba  Université Côte
d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange,F-06304
Nice, France  Julien Malzac  IRAP, Université de Toulouse, CNRS, UPS, CNES,
Toulouse, France  Isabelle Vauglin  Univ Lyon, Université Lyon1, ENS de Lyon,
CNRS, CRAL UMR5574, F-69230 Saint-Genis-Laval, France  Olivia Venot
Université de Paris Cité and Univ Paris Est Creteil, CNRS, LISA, F-75013
Paris, France

###### Abstract

The Commission Femmes et Astronomie conducted a statistical study that aims at
mapping the presence of women in French professional Astronomy today, and set
a starting point for studying its evolution with time. For the year 2021, we
proceeded with a sub-set of 8 astronomy and astrophysics institutes, hosting a
total of 1060 employees, among which PhD students, post-doctoral researchers,
and academic, technical, and administrative staff, representing around 25% of
the community. We have investigated how the percentage of women vary with
career stage, level of responsibility, job security, and level of income. The
results of this preliminary study seem to illustrate the leaky pipeline, with
one major bottleneck being the access to permanent positions. It appears that
the proportion of women steadily decreases with the security of jobs, with the
career stage, with the qualification level and with the income level.

###### keywords:

Astronomy & Astrophysics, Gender inequalities, Career

##  1 Introduction

The Commission Femmes et Astronomie of the SF2A (Société Française
d’Astronomie et d’Astrophysique, French astronomical Society) was created in
2020 to form an instance where questions related to gender equality can be
addressed within the French astronomical community. The Commission has ten
members, of which six members are currently –or were at some point– also part
of the SF2A Council: Caroline Bot, Sylvie Brau-Nogué, Danielle Briot*, Patrick
de Laverny*, Nadège Lagarde*, Rhita-Maria Ouazzani*, Nicole Nesvadba, Julien
Malzac*, Isabelle Vauglin, and Olivia Venot111members of the SF2A Council. The
main goals of the Commission are to promote gender equality in Astronomy &
Astrophysics in France, fight against sexual and gender-based violence,
support gender-focused outreach actions, …

Before the commission was created, different efforts to do a census of the
status of women in astronomy in France were conducted. In particular, a survey
was conducted through the SF2A to probe the future of doctors who obtained
their PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics between 2007 and 2017. The results
presented in Berné & Hilaire (2020) showed, among other points, that women
were less likely to be offered permanent positions than men. That same year,
Bot & Buat (2020) did a census of the percentage of women on permanent
positions in France, finding that 23% percents of permanent positions at that
time were held by women. Looking at two different age classes, they found that
the number of women seemed to be decreasing for university positions while
increasing for astronomer positions (CNAP) and that no evidence of a glass
ceiling effect was observed. While both studies were important and necessary,
they gave an instantaneous glimpse of the status of women in astronomy in
2019-2020, they were limited to the information requested or available and
were biased by the surveyed population (young researchers for Berné & Hilaire
2020 or permanent positions for Bot & Buat 2020).

Figure 1: Left: Proportion of women for the overall sample, among permanent
staff, and non-permanent staff. Right: Proportion of women among the
researchers (from PhD to Emeritus, 687 individuals), and among administrative,
technical and engineering staff (a.k.a ITA, 373 individuals).

In this context, the Commission Femmes et Astronomie decided to conduct a
statistical study that aims at mapping the presence of women in French
professional Astronomy today, and set a starting point for studying its
evolution with time.

As a first step, we would like to address general questions such as:

  * •

What is the percentage of women in French Astronomical institutes?

  * •

How does their number vary with their level of seniority –i.e. career stage–?

  * •

What is the percentage of women at different levels of responsibility?

  * •

How does the number of women depend on income level?

The perimeter of this study is restricted to the research units (institutes)
depending of the Astronomy & Astrophysics (AA) section of the National
Institute for Universe Sciences (INSU), with the exception of the LISA
institute, which was included in this study although it was not labeled AA, as
part of this institute’s activities are related to astronomy and astrophysics.
The approach adopted consists in collecting data directly from the institutes
heads, through their administrative services. The data is anonymised upfront,
to comply with privacy policies. Once anonymised it is distributed to the
members of the committee, who are the only persons authorized to manipulate
them using secured tools.

For the year 2021, taken as the starting point for the evolutionary sequence,
we proceeded with a sub-set of institutes of the INSU-AA, as a proof of
concept, with the aim of extending the study to all the INSU-AA institutes in
the near future.

##  2 Participation of women in Astronomy in 2021

###  2.1 The 2021 study set-up

We were able to collect data from eight research institutes within France:
GEPI, IRAP, Lagrange, LESIA, LISA, LUTh, ObAS and the SYRTE, which include
1060 individuals, representing around 25% of the community.

For all these institutes, the data contained the following entries:

  * -

Gender,

  * -

Date of Birth,

  * -

Employer (CNRS/CNAP/University/else),

  * -

Status (students/post-doc/researcher/engineers, administrative or technical
staff a.k.a. ITA),

  * -

and for the public servants: the category (known as grade in french:
IR/IE/CR/DR/AA/A/MdC/PU/…).

###  2.2 General results and job security

The first number presented in Fig. 1 (left, overall population), gives the
proportion of women, regardless of their status, age or position. This number
represents the likelihood of crossing paths with a woman in a corridor when
walking through a French astronomy institute: one in three.

The workforce in French academia is composed of permanent staff, among which
we count public servants –this includes persons in research, engineering,
technical or administrative positions–, as well as very few (but nevertheless
growing number of) persons employed on corporate-like permanent positions. As
for non-permanent positions, are counted PhD students, post-doctoral
researchers, teaching assistants, apprenticeships, and holders of a short-term
contract (on engineering, technical or administrative jobs). Looking at the
distribution of women among permanent and non-permanent positions (Fig.1,
left), we see that women (35.2%) are most likely employed on temporary
contracts than men (28.5%). If we restrict this comparison to research
positions, 25.0% of researchers on permanent positions are women, whereas it
is 34.9% for non-permanent positions (28.7% for the overall population).

One potential source of variability in these numbers is expected to come from
the type of position (research or not). That is what is explored on the right
panel of Fig.1. We are aware that persons hired on ITA positions also
contribute to the research that is produced in these institutes, but different
social and economical values are attributed to research and ITA positions, and
that is what, we believe, is determining here. Among women working in the 8
institutes included in the study, 39.2% are hired as ITA, while for men the
percentage is 33.4%.

For the following discussions, we consider separately the population of
researchers (in the broad sense: from PhD to Emeritus) on the one hand, and
the population of Engineering, Technical and Administrative staff altogether
(ITA) on the other hand.

Figure 2: Proportion of women at each stage of the research career. In solid
lines are superimposed linear fits of the proportion of women (light orange)
and men (light green), the quality of the fit is indicated by a value of
$R^{2}=0.486$.

###  2.3 Research career

Concerning researchers, we have sorted the population (687 individuals)
according to the category of their position. From the youngest to the most
seniors, we have listed: PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, and
positions equivalent to associate professors (CR, ASTA, PHYSA, MC), to second-
class professors (DR2, PU2, AST2), to first-class professors (DR1, PU1, AST1),
to professor of exceptional class (DRCE, PUCE, ASTCE), and Emeritus. The
result is illustrated in Fig. 2. In order to emphasize the general trend, a
linear fit has been performed ($R^{2}=0.486,p=0.08$), which shows that the
proportion of women decreases with the career stage. This overall trend seems
to be mostly caused by the first drop in the distribution: when women
represent around 35% of the population in non-permanent positions (PhD
students and post-doctoral researchers), the proportion decreases to 23.4% for
the first level of permanent employment. After this first bottleneck, the
number varies slightly between around 23% and around 29%, with two noticeable
increases: one at the second-class professor level, and another one at the
Emeritus level.

Figure 3: Proportion of women in each category of ITA jobs. From left to right
they are ordered by qualification and income level. The solid lines give the
optimal linear fits of these distributions, with a value of $R^{2}=0.661$.

It is important to bear in mind that this study gives a snapshot of the
distribution for 2021. Temporal or causal relations between one stage to
another are delicate to establish, and could properly be addressed only if
this snapshot is renewed every year. However, concerning the clear increase of
proportion of women between the associate professor level and the second-class
professor level, one can wonder if it is not a stellar-main-sequence effect.
Astronomers know that the large majority of observable stars are currently in
their main sequence. That is because the main sequence, during which they burn
hydrogen in their core, is the longest of all stellar evolution stages. Hence,
we are led to wonder if this increase of women is not due to the fact that
once they are promoted to second-class professorship, they spend a
particularly long time in that stage before being promoted further up, if at
all.

###  2.4 ITA careers

Concerning the population of ITA, composed here of 373 individuals, their
distribution by career level is illustrated in Fig. 3. It is worth mentioning
that the histogram presents broad categories of ITA (known as corps in French)
ordered by levels of income and qualification, but contrary to Fig. 2, the
progression from one category to the other is very little or none.
Furthermore, the sources of variability are much more numerous than in the
research career case. Firstly because of the variety of jobs it encompasses
(administrative, technical, R&D …). The jobs that fall into the ATR-T and AI
categories have an dominant administrative component, whereas IE and IR are
mostly scientific and technical jobs. Another source of variability are the
qualifications needed to apply for these different kinds of positions: some
require a PhD (IR), and others the High School Leaving Certificate
(Baccalauréat). In general, it is safe to assert that women are present in
higher proportion in jobs that have a clear administrative component, and have
lower levels of qualifications and lower income. As for men, they dominate in
more technical jobs, where the level of qualification can be higher, and
access higher income. In summary, we can conclude from Fig. 3 that as the
qualification and the level of income increases, the number of women decreases
(illustrated by the linear fit, with a $p$ value of $p=0.1$). A finer analysis
would require to blow up each of the histogram stick into finer category
(grade in French), but with the current data at hand, we risk ending up with
the small numbers statistics issue.

Figure 4: Proportion of women and men at each income level give in Table 1, increasing from left to right. The quality of the fit is given by a value of $R^{2}=0.662$. level | category
---|---
L1 | AJT, TCN, TCS
L2 | TCE, AI
L3 | IECN, IR2
L4 | IEHC, IR1, CRCN, MC, PRAGCN, ASTA, PHYSA
L5 | IRHC, CR1, CRHC, MCHC, DR2, PU2, AST2
L6 | DR1, DRCE, PU1, PUCE, AST1, ASTCE, Emerites
Table 1: Scale of income for all the workers in the sample, researchers and
ITA altogether. In terms of gross salary, it starts from about 1590 euros and
reaches around 6200 euros.

###  2.5 The sinews of war

We also addressed the crux of the matter: salary levels. For this purpose, we
bring together again the whole sample (1060 individuals), and sort them out
simply by level of income. To do so, we chose to use a scale of income set up
by S. Brau-Nogué (see https://www.irap.omp.eu/egalite/bilan-social-et-
parite-2022/) in her work to document gender inequalities in her institute
(IRAP), work which has largely inspired this study. The scale is presented in
Table 1. Far from being a motivation for working in the academic sector, we
believe that the level of income is a good indicator of the social value
associated to a given position. Concerning the first two levels, they
encompass mainly technical and administrative positions that are known to be
positions which are very gender specific. But once we reach level L3, we
observe that there is a clear and regular decrease of the proportion of women
as the income increases. In solid lines are given the optimal linear fits of
the distributions for men and women, with a $p$ value of $p=0.05$.

##  3 Preliminary conclusions and perspectives

We present the results of our first statistical study on the participation of
women in French Astronomical Institutes. Our sample was composed of 1060
individuals, belonging to 8 institutes, making up for around 25% of the
targeted population. Although the results are still preliminary, it appears
that the proportion of women steadily decreases with the security of jobs /
the career stage / the qualification level / the income level. This seems to
illustrate the well known leaky pipeline issue, but needs further
confirmation.

In particular, the sample for this study suffered from a number of
shortcomings. Some institutes included in the study cover topics which go
beyond Astrophysics, such as the LISA and the SYRTE. Looking at the $p$ values
associated to the trends determined, we wish to improve the statistical
robustness of the inferences. We aim at solving this issue by extending the
sample to all the French Astronomical Institutes in the coming years.
Moreover, the snap-shot nature of this study prevents from drawing strong
conclusions about the evolutionary trends. Even if it can be very tempting to
get a sense of evolution by looking at different generations of workers, one
should keep in mind that state policies, or even the culture can change from
one generation to the other.

## Appendix: Index of jobs in A&A

Here we give some elements for understanding the zoo of jobs that one can find
in the astronomical institutes in France. In general all the positions are
divided into category (a.k.a. corps in french), and class (a.k.a. grade in
french).

Academic careers: The three main job providers are the CNRS (French national
institute for research), Universities, and the CNAP (Conseil National des
Astronomes et Physiciens). According to the hiring institution, we can define
different career paths, all of which contain 2 categories and each category
can be split into 2 or 3 classes:

  * •

CNRS: Chargés de Recherche (research associates; 2 classes: CRCN and CRHC)
$\rightarrow$ Directeurs de Recherche (research directors; 3 classes: DR2,
DR1, DRCE)

  * •

CNAP: Astronomes Associés (associate astronomers; 2 classes: ASTA, PHYSA)
$\rightarrow$ Astronomes (astronomers; 3 classes: AST2, AST1, ASTCE)

  * •

University: Maitres de Conférence (associate professors, 2 classes: MC, MCHC)
$\rightarrow$ Professeurs (professors; 3 classes: PU2, PU1, PUCE)

Engineering, technical, administrative careers (ITA): For ITA, the positions
are divided into 5 categories, which are themselves divided into several
classes (ordered by level of qualification):

  * •

Adjoints techniques de la recherche (AJT)

  * •

Techniciens de la recherche (TCN, TCS, TCE)

  * •

Assistants ingénieurs (AI)

  * •

Ingénieurs d’études (IECN, IEHC)

  * •

Ingenieurs de recherche (IR2, IR1, IRHC)

###### Acknowledgements.

The members of the Commission Femmes et Astronomie would like to thank all
institutes directors and colleagues who kindly agreed to providing the data
that made this study possible, and the administrative staff who worked on
their compilation and anonymisation.

## References

  * Berné & Hilaire (2020) Berné, O. & Hilaire, A. 2020, Nature Astronomy, 4, 296
  * Bot & Buat (2020) Bot, C. & Buat, V. 2020, http://sf2a.eu/Bot_Buat.pdf