Women's Careers in Academic Social Science: Progress, Pitfalls, and Plateaus

Abstract

Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. Here, we evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor exist in the social sciences controlling for background and productivity characteristics. Using the 1981-2008 Survey of Doctorate Recipients, we find first that women with children are less likely than similar men to enter track jobs but not single childless women, suggesting that women’s entry into tenure-track academia is dominated by choice rather than by any discrimination at hiring. We find that ceteris paribus gender differences in tenure award existed in the cohort of 1980s PhDs but disappeared for the cohort of 1999 PhDs. The exception is the field of economics, where at least the probit analysis suggests a gender difference of approximately 20% that has not disappeared and is even larger for those single and childless. Finally, we find that there does seem to be gender differences in promotion to full in social science as a whole and in economics, sociology and anthropology/linguistics.

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