Portuguese Women in Science and Technology (S&T): some gender features
behind MSc. and PhD. achievement
1.- Introduction
This research area has for long been given a meaningful concern and
effort by most Portuguese researchers on Gender Studies. The resulting
outcomes have as well been deeply marked by the diversity of disciplinary
domains approaching that research field. Therefore, we can identify some
of the main contributes coming from Linguistics, Anthropology, History,
Sociology, Economics, .., and we will briefly review some important
results in a further Section1.
Nevertheless, the operational support research relied on cross-
sectional data most of times. This is a natural feature because of both the
scarcity of alternative data and the technical difficulties in dealing with
panel or longitudinal information.
But inequality is by nature a dynamic process... Therefore,
considering gender differences in educational chances, post-graduation
strategies and inherent results in terms of occupational condition and work
status will strongly advise the use of time sensitive data. Furthermore this
kind of analysis will deeply benefit from the possibility of recovering
individual trajectories from an as early as possible stage. Actually, some
recent research on school failure and on child work in Portugal allows us to
reinforce this statement2.
1 We will almost exclusively rely on research deriving from Economics and Sociology. For a further
reading on gender studies in Portugal under a broader scientific point of view see APEM (2001, 2002)
and Machado (coord., 2006).
2 Chagas Lopes & Medeiros (2004); Chagas Lopes & Goulart (2005).