Working Paper: NBER ID: w12691
Authors: Donna K. Ginther; Shulamit Kahn
Abstract: Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. We evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor explain these facts using the 1973-2001 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that women are less likely to take tenure track positions in science, but the gender gap is entirely explained by fertility decisions. We find that in science overall, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor after controlling for demographic, family, employer and productivity covariates and that in many cases, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor even without controlling for covariates. However, family characteristics have different impacts on women's and men's promotion probabilities. Single women do better at each stage than single men, although this might be due to selection. Children make it less likely that women in science will advance up the academic job ladder beyond their early post-doctorate years, while both marriage and children increase men's likelihood of advancing.
Keywords: gender; promotion; tenure; academic science; family responsibilities
JEL Codes: J4; J71
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| children (J13) | women's likelihood of advancing in academia (I24) |
| children (J13) | men's promotion probabilities (J62) |
| fertility decisions (J13) | women's likelihood to take tenure track positions in science (J16) |
| single childless women (J12) | likelihood of obtaining tenure track jobs (J63) |
| marriage (J12) | women's chances of promotion (J62) |
| demographic and family characteristics (J12) | promotion to tenure or full professor (M51) |