Pregnancy and maternity planning pose a challenge and stress in the academic career of a researcher, especially at the PhD and postdoctoral level, where the conditions of employment and role status are not clear. This paper discusses how women evaluate maternity-related issues and balance their scientific career in the field of physics and the physical sciences from undergraduate to postdoctoral level. The paper tries to assess how this affects their progress in academic science. The data were generated through indepth individual interviews with 15 women from four universities in Dublin. The participants of this study were not necessarily mothers or mother-to-be. The findings indicate that compared to their male counterparts, the need to continually publish, the absence of paid parental leave, short-time positions, lack of clear institutional policies on maternity, lack of pregnancy-maternity friendly work plans and the non-extension of contracts, puts many female early-career scientists at an academic disadvantage, resulting in a leaky pipeline. This paper will offer a wider understanding of how instability intersecting with maternity, gender and gendered family responsibilities cause young women from undergraduate to postdoctoral level in science to reevaluate their academic career progression.

This study investigates women’s science identity development in physics and the physical sciences in higher education through a gender perspective. It arises from the real-life sociological issue of women’s lower level of participation in physics and physical sciences in Ireland, where the gender gap is the highest of all science disciplines, according to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) reports of recent years. Twenty-nine undergraduate, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers from four Dublin universities were interviewed to achieve an in-depth understanding of gender and science issues from their standpoints. The focus was on how they constitute their identities as a ‘scientist’ in relation to their gender. The result of this study illustrates a variety of possible science identity constitutions of women both from an individual and collective identity perspective. Understanding women’s science identity development help brings a general view about developing a more welcoming and flexible science culture for individuals who think they do not fit well or who are left outside of the certain prevailing norms in the scientific climate. It also can allow seeking a way of challenging and changing the predominant culture and the prevailing masculine norms in doing science.

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