Unpaid work and access to science professions.

Auriel M V Fournier,Margaret A Leighton,Alexander L Bond,Angus J Holford

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0217032

Abstract

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.

Highlights

On 26 April, 2018, the UK House of Lords passed the Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill, paving the way for new legislation against unpaid work [1,2]
Unpaid work found through personal connections was associated with higher
Unpaid work and access to science professions rates of persistence in STEM, compared with that found in other ways, offsetting the negative overall relationship between unpaid work and persistence in STEM

Summary

Introduction

On 26 April, 2018, the UK House of Lords passed the Unpaid Work Experience (Prohibition) Bill, paving the way for new legislation against unpaid work [1,2]. The new proposed law would prohibit unpaid work exceeding four weeks in duration The motivation behind this legislation is one of levelling the playing field: in the words of the proposer Lord Holmes, the bill is about “empowerment, enablement, fairness, equality, dignity, respect and talent” [3]. With growing policy concern over the lack of diversity in science [4,5], career steps which present differentially high barriers to young people according to their socioeconomic background deserve particular scrutiny. The Royal Society has established that, in the UK, socioeconomic background is a strong predictor of entering the scientific workforce; gender and ethnicity, while relevant, present a more complex relationship with science careers [6]

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