EPWS Vice-President Prof. Claudine Hermann has been interviewed for a recent article on Euroscientist – Inadequate Childcare Policies Affect Scientists’ Careers.
The article, by Janna Degener, investigates the difficulties faced by women scientists in balancing their career with raising children, providing a number of examples of European policies that frame this issue.
“The issue is largely a cultural one. “It is not due to science but due to the cultures of the different countries that the problem of childcare is more on the shoulder of women than men. But the role models and the family models are changing slowly and that affects scientists and other high educated women,” says Claudine Hermann , vice-president of the European Platform of Women Scientists, retired professor of physics at the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, France, with three children.
Hermann claims that scientific institutions should invest more money to support female and male scientists with children to compensate the fact that the number of scientists with children varies much from country to country.”