. "6 Key Findings and Recommendations." Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2010.
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Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty
TABLE 6-2 Transitions from Ph.D. to Tenure-Track Positions by Field at the Research I Institutions Surveyed (percent)
Doctoral Pool
Pools for Tenure-Track Positions
Percent Women Ph.D.s (1999-2003)
Mean Percent of Applicants Who Are Women
Mean Percent of Applicants Invited to Interview Who Are Women
Mean Percent of Offers that Go to Women
Biology
45
26
28
34
Chemistry
32
18
25
29
Civil engineering
18
16
30
32
Electrical engineering
12
11
19
32
Mathematics
25
20
28
32
Physics
14
12
19
20
SOURCE: Survey of departments carried out by the Committee on Gender Differences in Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty; Ph.D. data is from the NSF, WebCASPAR.
Finding 3-3: In each of the six disciplines, the percentage of applications fromwomen for tenure-track positions was lower than the percentage of Ph.D.sawarded to women.
Table 6-2 shows the percentage of women in the pool at each of several key transition points in academic careers: award of Ph.D., application for position, interview, and job offer. In each discipline, the percentage of applications from women was lower than the percentage of doctoral degrees awarded to women. This was particularly the case in chemistry and biology, the two disciplines in the study with the highest percentage of female Ph.D.s. The mean percentage of female applicants for tenure-track positions in chemistry was 18 percent, but women earned 32 percent of the Ph.D.s in chemistry from Research I institutions from 1999-2003. Biology (24 percent in the tenure-track pool and 45 percent in the doctoral pool) also showed a significant difference. Electrical engineering (10 percent in the tenure-track pool and 12 percent in the doctoral pool), mathematics, and physics had modest decreases in the applicant pool.
Recruitment
Finding 3-7: Most of the institutional and departmental strategies that wereproposed for increasing the proportion of women in the applicant pool werenot strong predictors of the percentage of women applying. Most steps (suchas targeted advertising and recruiting at conferences) were done in isolation,with almost two-thirds of the departments in our sample reporting that theytook either no steps or only one step to increase the gender diversity of theapplicant pool.
