Women in Astronomy in Belgium

The under-representation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and astronomy is a fact that appears in multiple European countries, and has been extensively analyzed [1]. Female astronomers and women in STEM appear to face struggles throughout their academic career path, due to a combination of factors, like family formation, childbearing, expectations connected to gender, personal choices in lifestyle, career preferences, etc. [2].

In Belgium too, this seems to still be the case. In an early study, [3] analysed gender-specific statistics on the Belgian physicists. One of the difficulties they found was that Belgium keeps different statistics for the French-speaking and Flemish universities, and the career structure is different depending on the Communities.

In a preliminary work, we attempted to gather all information available to study the question of the representation of women in astronomy in Belgium, which was not a straightforward task [4].

In this poster, we will present the results of a quantitative and qualitative study carried out within the frame of a thesis of the Advanced Master in Space Studies at the KU Leuven and Universiteit Gent. We conducted a survey addressing the Belgian astronomer community currently working or who have worked in public institutes, such as universities and federal institutes.

References

[1] European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, She figures handbook 2021, Publications Office, 2021, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/003736

[2] ​Ceci & Williams, Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science, 2011-02, Vol.108 (8)

[3] Petra Rudolf, Vice‐President, Christine Iserentant, Muriel Vander Donckt, Nathalie Balcaen, Peggy Fredrickx, Karen Janssens, and Griet Janssen, "Women in Physics in Belgium: Still a Long Way From Achieving Gender Equality", AIP Conference Proceedings 628, 131-132 (2002) https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1505297

[4] Piccialli, A., Lefever, K., Carine Vandaele, A., et al., 2021, European Planetary Science Congress. doi:10.5194/epsc2021-581