UC Must Make Good on Commitment to Fix Gender Equity Policies
A starting salary of less than $44,000 forces postdocs to scrape by in high-rent California and make sacrifices for our scholarship and professional advancement down the road. But for women postdocs, the sacrifice is even greater. Among recent PhD graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields, women are paid 31% less than men – this suggests a wage hike and wage gap review for postdocs is in order. But salary is not the only significant obstacle that women postdocs face. Failed sexual harassment policies, zero or minimal childcare subsidies, inadequate parental leave policies and inflexible workplace rules hostile to new mothers are also major factors in, as University of Hawaii Professor Hope Jahren describes, the university shedding “women the way the trees on campus lose their leaves in the fall”