. "5 Gender Differences in Tenure and Promotion." Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2010.
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
Please use the page image
as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty
FIGURE 5-4(b) One minus the probability of promotion to full professor for males (solid curves) and females (dashed curves) in electrical engineering. Light gray denotes institutions of highest prestige, dark gray represents institutions of medium prestige and black represents institutions of lower prestige.
Figure 5-4a was drawn for biology at a private institution with 17 percent female faculty, and Figure 5-4b was drawn for electrical engineering.
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The survey results yielded some surprising findings about the award of tenure, promotion to full professor, and time and rank for female and male faculty members.
Award of Tenure
Finding 5-1: In every field, women were underrepresented among candidatesfor tenure relative to the number of female assistant professors. Most strikingly, women were most likely to be underrepresented in the fields in whichthey accounted for the largest share of the faculty—biology and chemistry. In biology and chemistry, the differences were statistically significant. In biology, 27 percent of the faculty considered for tenure were women, although women represented 36 percent of the assistant professor pool. In chemistry those numbers were 15 percent and 22 percent, respectively. This difference may suggest that female assistant professors were more likely to leave before being considered for tenure than were men. It might also reflect increased hiring of female assistant professors in recent years (compared with hiring 6 to 8 years ago). Note, however,
