Summary
There have been many recent discussions about complex problems that arise in natural resources, such as fisheries, and how those issues may be best addressed with a broad collection of knowledge, skills, and experiences found in a diverse workforce. However, there were no numbers indicating the diversity of the fisheries science workforce. To learn more, scientists assessed the race/ethnicity and gender diversity in the professional/academic fisheries science workforce in the United States. They found that women and minorities are a small portion of tenure-track faculty and federal-government professionals, likely because of systemic biases and cultural barriers. Women generally make up about 25% of the fisheries science workforce, and less, about 15%, as the rank of the position increases. However, the lack of diversity is even more pronounced when analyzed by race, with only roughly 10% of all fisheries science manager and faculty positions occupied by minorities.
The 2016 President of Society of Freshwater Sciences cited these findings in a call to diversify the field of aquatic ecology. American Fisheries Society, the largest fisheries organization in the world, used this paper to launch a discussion about diversity in the society and across the discipline nationally.
