Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty
Autor/in:
Spoon, Katie; LaBerge, Nicholas; Wapman, K. Hunter; Zhang, Sam; Morgan, Allison C.; Galesic, Mirta; Fosdick, Bailey K.; Larremore, Daniel B.; Clauset, Aaron
Quelle: Science Advances, 9 (2023) 42
Details
Inhalt: Women remain underrepresented among faculty in nearly all academic fields. Using a census of 245,270 tenure-track and tenured professors at United States-based PhD-granting departments, we show that women leave academia overall at higher rates than men at every career age, in large part because of strongly gendered attrition at lower-prestige institutions, in non-STEM fields, and among tenured faculty. A large-scale survey of the same faculty indicates that the reasons faculty leave are gendered, even for institutions, fields, and career ages in which retention rates are not. Women are more likely than men to feel pushed from their jobs and less likely to feel pulled toward better opportunities, and women leave or consider leaving because of workplace climate more often than work-life balance. These results quantify the systemic nature of gendered faculty retention; contextualize its relationship with career age, institutional prestige, and field; and highlight the importance of understanding the gendered reasons for attrition rather than focusing on rates alone.
Schlagwörter:Arbeitsklima; attrition; climate survey; gender differences; Geschlechterunterschied; Organisationsklima; underrepresentation; US Supreme Court; work-family balance; workplace culture
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Career ambitions of women academics. Are women willing and able to rise to the top in higher education institutions?
Autor/in:
Drake, Irmelin; Svenkerud, Sigrun Wessel
Quelle: Studies in Higher Education, (2023) , S 1–12
Details
Inhalt: The disproportion of women to men at the top tier in the academic hierarchy, concerns politicians, academic leaders, students, and other stakeholders. A popular explanation for the gender imbalance in elite positions is that potential female candidates lack ambition and therefore do not have sufficient drive to make it to the top. In this study, we explore the issue of professional ambition among a group of women academics working as tenured associate professors in Norway. With the backdrop of VIE (Valence-instrumentality-expectancy) theory, we focus on two key subjective, but nonetheless contextual judgments that are assumed to underlie the decision to aim for a promotional opportunity; (i) Do I want it and (ii) Can I make it? Three sources of qualitative data provide interesting insights into these considerations, and our findings point to focusing more specifically on the perceived costs that are assumed to derive from making this career choice. The women are ambitious in the sense that they desire the professional clout and impact that comes with this top role (so, yes, they want it). However, a number of conditions are perceived to be central to the actual realization of their ambitions, such as more time, resources and transparency when it comes to the qualification process. The findings may serve as important to designing more suitable career conditions for this target group in practice. Finally, we propose the application of a context-specific gender perspective to better understand women’s career ambitions in higher education institutions (HEI).
Schlagwörter:career; career ambition; full professor; gender perspective; qualitative research; resources; track choice; women; work environment
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Persistent pandemic: The unequal impact of COVID labor on early career academics
Autor/in:
Ballif, Edmée; Zinn, Isabelle
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2023)
Details
Inhalt: The COVID-19 pandemic has not only highlighted preexisting inequalities in academia but has also exacerbated them while giving rise to novel forms of disparities. Drawing upon our experiences as women, parents, and early career academics (ECAs) in Switzerland and enriched by feminist theory on reproductive labor and carework, we examine the unequal impacts of the pandemic. First, our analysis reveals how the pandemic disproportionately impacted ECAs, a group already in a position of precarity within academia. Second, we identify the broad range of tasks brought about by the pandemic as “COVID labor”. This essential labor—undervalued, invisible, and often unpaid—had a particularly negative impact on ECAs. Third, looking at various intersections of difference, we emphasize that the experience of COVID labor was far from uniform among ECAs with institutional responses disregarding its extent and unequal distribution. In conclusion, we underscore the importance of acknowledging the long-term consequences of COVID labor on ECAs, particularly those belonging to underrepresented groups. Neglecting these issues may lead to the loss of a wide range of talented scholars for reasons that are not related to the quality of their academic performance.
Schlagwörter:academia; Arbeit; care work; COVID-19; early career researcher; inequalities; intersectional; intersektional; labor; pandemie; precarity; Reproduktionsarbeit; Schweiz; Switzerland
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Women are credited less in science than men
Autor/in:
Ross, Matthew B.; Glennon, Britta M.; Murciano-Goroff, Raviv; Berkes, Enrico G.; Weinberg, Bruce A.; Lane, Julia I.
Quelle: Nature, 608 (2022) 7921, S 135–145
Details
Inhalt: There is a well-documented gap between the observed number of works produced by women and by men in science, with clear consequences for the retention and promotion of women1. The gap might be a result of productivity differences2-5, or it might be owing to women's contributions not being acknowledged6,7. Here we find that at least part of this gap is the result of unacknowledged contributions: women in research teams are significantly less likely than men to be credited with authorship. The findings are consistent across three very different sources of data. Analysis of the first source-large-scale administrative data on research teams, team scientific output and attribution of credit-show that women are significantly less likely to be named on a given article or patent produced by their team relative to their male peers. The gender gap in attribution is present across most scientific fields and almost all career stages. The second source-an extensive survey of authors-similarly shows that women's scientific contributions are systematically less likely to be recognized. The third source-qualitative responses-suggests that the reason that women are less likely to be credited is because their work is often not known, is not appreciated or is ignored. At least some of the observed gender gap in scientific output may be owing not to differences in scientific contribution, but rather to differences in attribution.
Schlagwörter:citation gap; gender gap; Karrierebarriere; Produktivität; scientific career; scientific productivity
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
How human capital, universities of excellence, third party funding, mobility and gender explain productivity in German political science
Autor/in:
Habicht, Isabel M.; Lutter, Mark; Schröder, Martin
Quelle: Scientometrics (Scientometrics), (2021) , S 1–27
Details
Inhalt: Using a unique panel dataset of virtually all German academic political scientists, we show that researchers become much more productive due to the accumulation of human capital and third party funding. We also show however, that while universities of excellence have more productive researchers, individuals who go there do not become more productive. Finally, we show how women publish only 9 percent less than men with the same level of prior publication experience, but are about 26 percent less productive over their entire career, as early productivity leads to later productivity, so that women increasingly fall behind. These results cannot be explained through the influence of childbearing. Rather, they support the ‘theory of limited differences’, which argues that small differences in early productivity accumulate to large differences over entire careers, as early success encourages later success. Apart from generally showing why political scientists publish more or less, we specifically identify accumulative advantage as the principal reason why women increasingly fall behind men over the course of their careers.
Hier zeigen wir, dass Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler an Exzellenzuniversitäten produktiver sind („Bestenauslese“). Doch dieselbe Wissenschaftlerin / Wissenschaftler wird nicht produktiver, weil man dort hin geht. Die wichtigsten Prädiktoren späterer Produktivität sind vorherige Produktivität und Drittmitteleinwerbungen. Dass Frauen weniger publizieren, können wir nicht darauf zurückführen, dass sie seltener auf höhere Karrierestufen kommen („leaky pipeline“), sondern vielmehr auf geringere Publikationserfahrung zu Beginn ihrer akademischen Laufbahn. Frauen publizieren also anfangs weniger, und da frühe Publikationserfahrung zu mehr Produktivität führt, wird der Abstand zu Männern im Verlaufe einer Karriere immer größer. Dies wiederum kann man nicht damit erklären, dass Kinder die Produktivität von Frauen stärker senken als von Männern.
Schlagwörter:academic career; Bestenauswahl; Drittmittel; Exzellenzinitiative; Forschungsförderung; funding; German higher education system; Geschlechterunterschied; human capital; Humankapital; political science; Produktivität; publication; Publikationsverhalten; wissenschaftliche Karriere
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Understanding social constructions of becoming an academic through women’s collective career narratives
Autor/in:
Barnard, Sarah; Rose, Anthea; Dainty, Andrew; Hassan, Tarek
Quelle: Journal of Further and Higher Education, (2021) , S 1–14
Details
Inhalt: The transition of early career researchers into academic posts is understood to be a crucial career step and marks a point at which representation of women declines significantly. The research adopts a participatory qualitative research methodology through career narrative interviews and group discussions with women engineers recently appointed into academic posts. It was found that academic careers are ‘hoped for’, but not described as a straightforward option in terms of either securing tenure or future career development. The collective career paths outlined were rarely linear and featured key moments of crisis and self-doubt, culminating in ‘tentative’ career identity formation in the face of gendered career structures. There is evidence of a pre-emptive and continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of an academic career that begins years before embarking on a PhD. The distinctive contribution of the study is the consideration of gendered early processes of forming an academic identity and ongoing collective experiences of becoming an academic.
Schlagwörter:akademische Karriere; early career researchers; Gender; Ingenieurwissenschaft; soziale Konstruktion; transition; Übergangsphase; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
International Mobility and Social Capital in the Academic Field
Autor/in:
Bauder, Harald
Quelle: Minerva, 58 (2020) 3, S 367–387
Details
Inhalt: The relationship between the international mobility of academic researchers and social capital is complex. On the one hand, the literature suggests that social capital facilitates the international mobility of academics which, in turn, promotes the accumulation of international social capital, enhances research productivity, and advances careers. On the other hand, international mobility can isolate researchers from the national social capital in their origin countries. In this paper, I present the results of 42 interviews in Canada and Germany to examine how academics in both countries have experienced the connection between international mobility and social capital. In addition to revealing the complexity of this connection, the results show that social capital facilitates international mobility and that mobility sometimes creates social capital. However, mobility can also lead to the loss of national social capital that negatively affects early-career researchers in particular.
Schlagwörter:academic career; Canada; Deutschland; early career researcher; Feldtheorie; international academic mobility; Interview; Kanada; Mobilität; scientific career; social capital; soziales Kapital; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Europa und Internationales, Wissenschaft als Beruf
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
He moana pukepuke: navigating gender and ethnic inequality in early career academics’ conference attendance
Autor/in:
Timperley, Claire; Sutherland, Kathryn A.; Wilson, Marc; Hall, Meegan
Quelle: Gender and Education, 32 (2020) 1, S 11–26
Details
Inhalt: Drawing on data collected in a cross-disciplinary survey of early-career academics (ECAs) in New Zealand, this article explores the factors influencing ECA conference attendance. Our conceptual framework uses conference attendance as the dependent variable and measures gender, ethnicity, family responsibilities and workload. Three key features affect conference attendance: "demographic characteristics" (background features and prior experiences that affect an academic's willingness and ability to attend), "accessibility" (constraints to attending, such as financing, family responsibilities, institutional support or teaching commitments) and "purpose" (the value placed on attending conferences by the individual, the institution, or the discipline). In particular, we identify differences for women, Indigenous people, and those born overseas with respect to their ability to navigate and their inclination to attend national and international conferences.
Schlagwörter:conference culture; early career researcher; ethnic minority; gender inequality; Konferenz; Neuseeland; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Diversity, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Gendered strategies of mobility and academic career
Autor/in:
Nikunen, Minna; Lempiäinen, Kirsti
Quelle: Gender and Education, 32 (2020) 4, S 554–571
Details
Inhalt: In universities, being mobile and international has become ever more important for academics’ career prospects. This article explores junior and other insecurely employed researchers’ experiences of geographical mobility in relation to their personal life, career, employability and value as scholars. The aim is to discover the gendered strategies researchers use to combine mobility with intimate relations and personal life. Furthermore, what gendered ideas of mobility, employability and career success do researchers themselves construct? These aspects of mobility, particularly focused on gender, are analysed in three cases: Finland, Italy and the United Kingdom. These states are all (currently) members of the European Union and have implemented its internationalisation policies. The data consists of qualitative interviews gathered in 2009 and 2010. We suggest that the value and capital of academic labour are evaluated differently in the three different locations. Additionally, gender, age, academic age and life situation motivate different mobility strategies.
Schlagwörter:akademische Karriere; Erfolgsfaktoren; Finnland; Gender; Italien; Karrierechancen; Karriereentwicklung; Mobilität; Strategie; UK; Vereinbarkeit; Vereinbarkeit Familie-Beruf
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Europa und Internationales, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Every Woman Has a Story to Tell : Experiential Reflections on Leadership in Higher Education
Autor/in:
Selzer, Robin Arnsperger; Robles, Richard
Quelle: Journal of Women and Gender in Higher Education, 12 (2019) 1, S 106–124
Details
Inhalt: This study explores and shares key professional development advice related to career paths, challenges faced, and lessons learned from senior women leaders at a public, urban, research university. Interviews were conducted as part the NASPA Alice Manicur Symposium, a national student affairs leadership development program for women. Findings identified two themes at the personal and institutional levels. Sub-themes included strategies for career advancement in higher education, such as accepting opportunities, being visible, understanding the business of higher education, and obtaining a terminal degree. Aspiring women should be ready to navigate institutional challenges, often outside of their control, such as bureaucracy and politics, budgetary constraints, forces impacting student affairs, and institutional change. Participants shared perspectives on addressing institutional change including assessing needs and affect, exploring perceptions of change, gaining buy-in, and leveraging the change. Because emerging women leaders in higher education are often overwhelmed and confused in the realm of career assessment, findings from this study address the problem. The needle can move for women in higher education leadership positions if women identify themselves as aspiring leaders, create time for career assessment reflection, and take action to implement strategies for advancement endorsed by successful senior women.
Schlagwörter:Change Management; Frauen in der Wissenschaft; Frauen in Führungspositionen; higher education; Karrierebarriere; Management; Organisationskultur; structural barriers
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz