In this week’s blog post, Dr. Katherine Villavicencio (University of Pisa) explores how women in STEAM navigate pregnancy and family life while advancing in their careers and examines the support (or lack thereof) provided by academic and research institutions. Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) careers are undoubtedly demanding. For women in these fields, juggling the rigorous requirements of academia and research becomes even more complex when layered with pregnancy and caregiving responsibilities. While reseach can be exhilarating, it also demands significant time, energy, and focus, all of which can become complicated when set against the backdrop of motherhood. Although caregiving responsibilities should ideally be shared equally, they too often are attributed to women, which adds further challenges to their careers.
The reality of academic motherhood.
Becoming a mother during the postdoctoral or early-career academic stage is often described as one of the most challenging intersections of personal and professional life. According to Mendez & Watson (2024), many women in STEM postdoctoral positions experience a heightened sense of precarity during pregnancy and early motherhood. Their study shows that the postdoctoral phase, already marked by temporary contracts and high productivity expectations, offers little structural support for balancing research with caregiving duties. Women often internalize the pressure to “do it all,” while coping with institutional cultures that rarely acknowledge caregiving as part of academic life.
This tension is exacerbated by the perception of pregnancy itself. In a recent analysis, Carter (2024) explores how pregnancy is often seen as a disruption within academic settings, a condition to be accommodated rather than integrated. The study points out that the academic workplace continues to privilege “ideal worker” norms: constant availability, mobility, and uninterrupted productivity. In this context, pregnancy challenges deeply hold assumptions about who fits into academia and who doesn’t.
Culture and career aspirations.
Beyond institutional policies, culture plays a powerful role in shaping women’s choices and trajectories in science and engineering. Thébaud & Taylor (2021) examine how gendered cultural expectations, particularly those surrounding motherhood, influence the career aspirations of women in STEM. Their research reveals that even before becoming mothers, many women anticipate the professional limitations that might arise from having children. This leads to preemptive adjustments in career goals: aiming for roles perceived as more flexible or less demanding or even opting out of research-intensive tracks altogether.
Rather than stemming from a lack of ambition, these decisions often reflect a rational response to the inflexibility of academic structures and the social penalties attached to caregiving. The authors introduce the concept of the “specter of motherhood,” illustrating how the mere anticipation of future caregiving roles influences women’s career aspirations. This specter casts a long shadow over women’s career planning, even in the absence of an actual child.
Emotional impact: How women scientists experience these challenges.
The emotional toll of navigating motherhood and academic life is as real as the structural barrier’s women face. According to Mendez & Watson (2024), many postdoctoral women in STEM describe feelings of guilt, self-doubt, and inadequacy as they struggle to meet the intense demands of research while also fulfilling caregiving responsibilities. These emotions are not simply personal, but they are shaped by institutional cultures that rarely acknowledge care work as part of a legitimate academic identity.
Thébaud & Taylor’s (2021) findings reveal that even women without children often preemptively adjust their ambitions out of fear that motherhood will be seen as incompatible with a serious scientific career. This sense of constraint stems from cultural expectations that continue to tie professional legitimacy in STEM to uninterrupted, full-time dedication, an ideal that implicitly excludes caregiving.
These emotional experiences guilt, anticipatory anxiety, and a persistent fear of being perceived as less committed are deeply intertwined with systemic issues, shaping not only women’s career decisions but also their sense of belonging in the scientific community.
Figure 2. Visible achievements, invisible pressures: navigating the academic world while holding up expectations beyond the lab. Stress, science, and silence: the unspoken reality of motherhood in academia. (Image generated by Fotor AI).
The leaky pipeline and the time factor.
One of the most persistent metaphors in discussions of women in academia is the “leaky pipeline”, the observation that women disproportionately exit the academic track at critical career stages. In astronomy, for example, Flaherty (2018) analyzed the timeline between receiving a PhD and securing a permanent faculty position and found a marked gender gap. Women, on average, spent longer in temporary positions than their male counterparts, a delay that correlates with childbearing years and caregiving responsibilities.
While the study does not attribute all the disparity to family obligations, it underlines a significant systemic issue: the rigid academic timeline does not align well with the biological and social realities of motherhood. Prolonged postdoctoral phases, short-term contracts, and expectations of geographic mobility make it incredibly difficult for women with families to advance at the same rate as their peers.
What needs to change?.
These studies together come to a crucial conclusion: the challenges of combining motherhood with a career in STEAM are not simply personal struggles, they are institutional and cultural ones.
Addressing them requires more than improved leave policies or on-campus childcare (though those are essential too). It means rethinking what we value in academic workers, expanding our definitions of productivity, and building flexible pathways that do not punish non-linear career trajectories. Specifically, we need:
- Proactive mentorship that accounts for diverse life experiences.
- Transparent parental leave policies tailored to career stages, not just permanent staff.
- Recognition of caregiving as a legitimate aspect of academic life, not a deviation from it.
- Cultural shifts that dismantle the myth of the “ideal worker” and normalize family-friendly models of success.
Conclusion: a more inclusive future.
Having a family should not disqualify anyone from a fulfilling, impactful career in science. And yet, for many women, the choice between motherhood and academic success still feels stark. The studies highlighted here suggest that while awareness is growing, real change requires both structural reforms and cultural evolution.
As we envision a more equitable future in STEAM, we must ask not just how to support mothers in science, but how to reshape science itself so that it welcomes and retains them. Flexibility, empathy, and institutional accountability are not extras; they are essential if we hope to build a truly inclusive scientific community.
References
Carter, P. (2024). Power and the perception of pregnancy in the academy. Gender, Work & Organization. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13001
Flaherty, K. (2018). The Leaky Pipeline for Postdocs: A study of the time between receiving a PhD and securing a faculty job for male and female astronomers. arXiv:1810.01511. https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.01511
Mendez, S. L., & Watson, K. J. (2024). Academic Motherhood: Considerations of STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women. Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 17(2), 118–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/26379112.2024.2312377
Thébaud, S., & Taylor, C. J. (2021). The Specter of Motherhood: Culture and the Production of Gendered Career Aspirations in Science and Engineering. Gender & Society, 35(4), 497–522. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912432211006037
