Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
June 19, 2019
Summary:
Unpaid work in the sciences is advocated as an entry route into scientific careers. We compared the success of UK science graduates who took paid or unpaid work six-months after graduation in obtaining a high salary or working in a STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics) field 3.5 years later. Initially taking unpaid work was associated with lower earnings and lower persistence in STEM compared with paid work, but those using personal connections to obtain unpaid positions were as likely to persist in STEM as paid workers. Obtaining a position in STEM six months after graduation was associated with higher rates of persistence in STEM compared with a position outside STEM for both paid and unpaid workers, but the difference is considerably smaller for unpaid workers. Socio-economic inequality in the likelihood of obtaining entry in STEM by taking an unpaid position is a well-founded concern for scientific workforce diversity.
Published in
PLoS ONE
Volume
Volume: 14
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0217032
Subjects
Notes
Open Access
© 2019 Fournier et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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