Female scientists have traditionally leave academia at a faster pace than their male counterparts. The reasons behind this phenomenon have been ascribed to career breaks involved in motherhood, barriers to maintaining work-life balance, and a male-dominated culture that favour established networks. These factors can lead to lower access to grants, high-impact journals, international collaborations and subsequent career promotions. In the last decades, academic institutions have introduced policies aiming at increasing representation of women in science, have they work? According to Kwiek and Szymula’s analysis of publications by authors living in OECD countries, there is still a long way to go. In a preprint article released in December 2024 (1), they reported that parity in biology research has been largely achieved for scientist starting their careers in 2010. In contrast there are still science disciplines heavily dominated by men, namely mathematics, computing, engineering and physics. Regarding the rates at which researchers leave science, somehow counterintuitively, women in biology disciplines leave more often than men, while in male-dominated areas there are no significant differences. For instance, in biology 25% of women were more likely than men to leave after 10 years and 40% more likely after 19 years. The authors suggest that the challenge is not just to secure equal participation in a scientific area (how to get there) but also retaining talent (staying there). Still, as the leading author, Marek Kwiek, declared to Nature (2), the idea of exiting science for non-academic roles should not be seen pessimistically. In fact, country by country data reveals that women may be quitting science because there are more attractive opportunities elsewhere; thus is Germany, where industry and higher education compete with Academia for talent, 39% of women remain in science after 10 years, while in Portugal, where the job market is stiffer, 76% do (see picture). OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A 38-member club of mostly developed countries. Photo: Kaplan-Meier probability of staying in science, 2024 (Kwiek). https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/marek.kwiek/viz/Attrition-in-science-OECD/Dashboard Read more: 1) Kwiek & Szymula 2024, bioRxiv (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0) 2) Nature News, 09-01-2025 (https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00021-6)