Brazilian physicists community diversity, equity and inclusion: a first diagnostic

TL;DR

This study provides a first comprehensive diagnostic of diversity, equity, and inclusion issues within the Brazilian physics community, highlighting underrepresentation, socioeconomic barriers, and harassment, especially among women.

Contribution

It offers the first detailed survey-based portrait of social diversity and challenges in the Brazilian physics community, informing future policies and interventions.

Findings

Brazilian physicists community is poorly diverse compared to the general population.

Socioeconomic vulnerability is the main obstacle to pursuing physics careers.

Harassment is prevalent, especially among women.

Abstract

We report the results of a survey applied to students and professionals in the area of physics in Brazil, pursuing to draw a portrait of the composition of this community in terms of the social markers age, race, ethnicity, geographical origin, sex, gender, sexual orientation, and disabilities. The main goal was to quantify the representativeness of different groups in the community and to detect motivations and difficulties encountered by each group throughout their studies and career. This survey was open to the members of the Brazilian Physics Society (SBF) from July to September 2018. Our outcomes reveal that (i) the Brazilian physicists community is poorly diverse even in comparison with the population composition, (ii) the main obstacle to pursue the career is socioeconomic vulnerability and (iii) harassment is high in our society, being more pronounced among women. We hope that these results will be useful to scientific and educational institutions to develop different strategies and policies to change this current situation.