. "3 Gender Differences in Academic Hiring." 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
that the percentage of female applicants is significantly (and positively) associated with the percentage of females in the applicant pool (p < 0.0001) and varies across discipline. For every 1 percent increase in the proportion of female applicants, the proportion of female interviewees increased by approximately 2 percent. The proportion of women in the interview pool was significantly lower in biology, electrical engineering, and physics relative to the other three areas. The effect of discipline, however, is difficult to interpret since the interaction between discipline and other factors is statistically significant. For example, the proportion of women interviewed in mathematics was not the same at public or private institutions. The difference in the percentage of female applicants between mathematics and civil engineering was larger in private institutions. Furthermore, women appear to be interviewed at a higher rate in the top 10 electrical engineering departments than in electrical engineering departments with lesser prestige. Because interpretation of main effects is problematic when interactions are present, we do not present adjusted means resulting from this analysis. No factor other than discipline and the representation of women among applicants (plus some interactions) was found to be associated with the percentage of women in interview pools.
OFFERS MADE
The final step in the search process is making a offer to one of the individuals interviewed. This section examines the percentage of offers made to women and the factors that may have an impact on this percentage. Table 3-5 presents data on whether the department’s search results in a first offer to a woman or a man, for the 108 tenured and 583 tenure-track jobs for which we have information on the gender of the applicant to whom an offer was made.
As the table illustrates, women received the first offer about 29 percent of the time for tenure-track positions and 31 percent of the time for tenured positions.
In Table 3-6, we present the distribution, over departments, of the percentage of women interviewees and offers for tenure-track and tenured jobs, which dem-
TABLE 3-5 Percent of First Offers by Gender and Type of Position
Type of Position
First Offer to a
Female
Male
Total
Tenured
31
69
108
Tenure-track
29
71
583
NOTES: Only those positions for which complete gender information about interviewees to whom the first offer was extended are included. Thus, the total number of positions on which this table is based is smaller than the numbers shown in Table 3-4. These percentages represent offers in all six disciplines, and therefore may hide important disciplinary differences.
SOURCE: Survey of departments carried out by the Committee on Gender Differences in Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty.
