Special Report
Gender Differences in the Careers of Academic Scientists and Engineers
National Science Foundation
We find evidence that female scientists and engineers
are less successful than their male counterparts in traveling along the
academic career path. Some of this disparity appears to be related to
differences between the sexes in the influence of family characteristics.
Typically, married women and women with children are less successful
than men who are married and have children. Our estimates of gender differences
in success rates are relatively insensitive to characteristics of academic
employers and to primary work activity. Below, we summarize our findings
for each of the career outcomes examined in this study. Read
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Research Report
Do Babies Matter? The Effect of Family Formation on the Lifelong Careers of
Academic Men and Women
Mary Ann Mason, Marc Goulden
The unequal consequences of choosing tenure first,
babies later.
A "baby gap" separates men and women in academe, says two
researchers who examined how having an academic career affects when and
whether male
and female professors have children. Two years ago in the journal, Mary
Ann Mason, dean of the graduate division at the University of California
at Berkeley, and Marc Goulden, the division's principal research analyst,
looked at the effect
of having children on women's and men's career paths in academe. Read
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Research Report
Do Babies Matter (Part II)? Closing the Baby Gap
Mary Ann Mason, Marc Goulden
Even though women make up nearly half of the PhD population,
they are not advancing at the same rate as men to the upper ranks of
the professoriate; many are dropping out of the race. Our first "Do
Babies Matter?" article, published in the November-December 2002
issue of Academe, examined the effect of family formation on academic
careers. We reported, not surprisingly, that babies do matter for men
and women PhDs working in academia. They matter a great deal, especially
their timing. We found that men with "early" babies—those
with a child entering their household within five years of their receiving
the PhD—are 38 percent more likely than their women counterparts
to achieve tenure (see figure 1-Please see print edition to view charts).
Moreover, the pattern of tenure achievement for women and men stayed
almost identical in the humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences.
It also held true across four-year institutions, from large research
universities to small liberal arts colleges. Read
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Research Report
A National Analysis of Diversity, in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research
Universities
Donna J. Nelson, Diana C. Rogers
The first national and most comprehensive analysis
to date of tenured and tenure track faculty in the “top 50” departments
of science and engineering disciplines shows that females and minorities
are significantly underrepresented. There are few tenured and tenure-track
women faculty in these departments in research universities, even though
a growing number of women are completing their PhDs. Qualified women
are not going to science and engineering departments. In some engineering
disciplines, there is a better match between the representation of females
in PhD attainment versus the faculty, but these disciplines are the ones
with very low percentages of females in PhD attainment. Read
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Report
The UC Family Friendly Edge
Mary Ann Mason, Angelica Stacy, Marc Goulden, Carol
Hoffman, Karie Frasch
In the coming years, the University of California (UC),
a ten campus and five medical center
system, faces particular challenges in recruiting and retaining the top-flight
faculty upon which its continued excellence will depend. One way that we propose to enhance
UC’s ability to attract and
retain faculty is the UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge, a series of policies
and programs designed
to assist tenure-track faculty, pre- and post- tenure, in achieving a
satisfying and productive work
and family life. Read
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