On Nobel Committees, Underrepresentation of Women is Slowly Improving

"Considering the fact that the proportion of women is low in the discipline of physics, I am not surprised that the proportion of women is lower than men," Olsson told AFP.

Feminization in progress

The committees vet potential candidates and propose worthy winners to the various academies entrusted with awarding the prizes.

The Swedish Academy awards the literature prize, the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm decides on medicine, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences is in charge of the physics, chemistry and economics prizes.

The number of women in the latter's ranks is growing and "gradually improving, although slowly", Goran Hansson, Secretary-General of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, told AFP.

For the peace prize, the five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee appointed by Norway's parliament both vets candidates and crowns the winners.

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It is the exception when it comes to gender parity: in recent decades women have dominated, sometimes claiming four of the five spots, even leading to jokes about the need for male quotas.

This year there are however only two women, although one is the chair.

In Njolstad's view, there is a simple explanation for the contrast with the science prize committees.

"The scientific committees carry with them the tradition of having had more highly qualified male scientific professors until today."

Appointments to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences are also for life so moving the needle is a slow process, unlike the Norwegian committee where members are elected for six-year terms.

Only 15 percent of Royal Swedish Academy of Science members are currently women, but Eva Mork, the first woman to sit on the economics prize committee in 2011, noted it is "getting more and more women".

As for literature, which might be considered a less male-dominated field, the Swedish Academy counts only five women among 18 members, though two seats are currently vacant due to recent deaths.

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