In spite of tremendous efforts, women are still under-represented in the field of science. Postgraduate education and early tenure track employment are part of the academic career establishment in research and development during periods that usually overlap with family formation. Though women tend to leave science mainly after obtaining their PhD, and the timing of motherhood plays a vital role in a successful research career, qualitative data on this life period are scarce. Our paper focuses on how the normative and institutional contexts shape female PhD engineering students' family plans. The research was based on intersections of life course and risk and uncertainty theories. Using qualitative interviews we explored how contradicting social norms of childbearing cause tensions in postgraduate students' lives, and how the different uncertainties and risks permeate young researchers' decisions on early life events. We concluded that, despite the general pattern of delaying motherhood among higher educated women, these students struggle against this postponement, and they hardly have any good options to avoid risk stemming from uncertainties and from some characteristics of studying and working in engineering. Findings of this research may call the attention of stakeholders to possible intervention points.

Despite recent pronatalist policies in Hungary, the country has not boosted birth rates at the expected rate. Higher educated women still delay the transition to first birth, a smaller proportion of planned children are born than in Western European countries, and the level of childlessness has also been increasing. As a post‐socialist legacy, prevailing traditional family and gender norms strongly constrain the reconciliation of work and family roles, which can prevent women from realizing their childbearing intentions or drive them to live a childfree life. Qualitative studies about how the fertility decisions of women are formed are scarce, particularly in relation to male‐dominated high‐skilled professions, where the realization of family plans can be especially challenging. The present article explores the barriers to motherhood among female engineers. Results of 27 semi‐structured interviews with mainly childless female PhD students in 2014–2015 show that the women were subject to strong social expectations that negatively influenced their fertility plans. On the family side, these involve becoming a mother and being responsible for child care and household chores; on the work side, challenges include the knowledge‐intensiveness of jobs and a male career model that hardly tolerates the role of motherhood. As a result, the respondents had further delayed childbearing, forecast reconsidering family plans after first childbirth, and in one case, opted for voluntary childlessness. Women also reflected on how their fertility is at stake due to their postponed motherhood and the cumulative effects of hazardous laboratory work. Several intervention points are suggested to stakeholders.

Understanding the impact of various diversity management (DM) practices in terms of their effectiveness in achieving desired outcomes within the organisation is a prevalent research gap in the general DM literature and the new stream of literature on DM in the research, development, and innovation (RDI) sector. Therefore, this article reviews the literature on gender diversity practices in RDI workplaces and how DM contributes to gender equality outcomes. For this purpose, we introduced a conceptual framework to demonstrate the interrelatedness of the forms and reasons for gender inequality, and the choice of DM practices and their outcomes. Moreover, we compiled an extensive list of DM practices for practitioners related to how to address the different forms and underlying reasons for gender inequality. Finally, by comparing the literature on DM outcomes in the business and the RDI sector, we concluded that research on measuring the outcomes of DM practices was less developed for RDI organisations, but gaps of knowledge on the outcomes of DM practices prevailed in both sectors. Organisational contexts in which specific diversity practices were implemented had a significant role in determining their effectiveness,highlighting the relevance of the institutionalist theory.

Transnational mobility has not only become an integral part of the successful, internatonally driven career path of academics, but is emerging to a great extent as a major performance requirement. Similarly to academic careers in general, international mobility of researchers is also a gendered process to a great extent. This paper aims to assess the most important characteristics of Hungarian researchers working abroad with special attention put on the similarities and differences identified in the career path of female and male researchers. With an online self-administered questionnaire distributed through a snowball sampling methodologyamong Hungarian PhD-holders working abroad for more than one year, we investigated the motivation for international mobility, the career path, work contracts, work-life balance, future career plans and the perception of the value of the PhD degree. Our key findings indicate that male researchers’s labour market position is more advantageous abroad than female researchers’ and overall they are more convinved of the positive value of their PhD degree, while female academics were statisfied, but at a more moderate level.