Women: Their Underrepresentation and Career Differentials in Science and Engineering Proceedings of a Conference (1987) / Chapter Skim
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PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE IN THE CAREERS OF MEN AND WOMEN SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS: A REVIEW OF CURRENT RESEARCH
PERSISTENCE AND CHANGE IN THE CAREERS OF MEN AND WOMEN SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS: A REVIEW OF CURRENT RESEARCH
Pages 127-162
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From page 127... ...
. A similar pattern of underrepresentation in industry and overrepresentation in education holds for women doctorates, with some variation by field, but gender differences in sector of employment are not as great among doctorates as among all scientific and technical workers (NSB, l985:Table 3-8)
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From page 128... ...
These differences, obscured by simple bivariate distributions, cannot be ignored when comparing the career attainments of men and women scientists and engineers. The sources of gender difference in the choice of fields and sector of employment are not well understood and require more intensive study than they have received.
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From page 129... ...
. However, measured ability seems unrelated to research performance in science (Bayer and Folger, l966)
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From page 130... ...
. Such differences in earnings doubtless reflect gender differences in academic and organizational rank and possibly the gender differences in publication that begin to appear at this stage of the career.
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From page 131... ...
. Among new Ph.D.s, gender differences in job opportunities are less marked.
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From page 132... ...
In fact, women do not get promoted to high rank at the same rate as men, but such cross-sectional data cannot show this, since they do not take into account the differing age distributions of the pools from which men and women professors are drawn. So far then, comparisons confined to new Ph.D.s and to newly hired assistant professors show that women become assistant professors at about the rate that would be expected, given their representation among new degree holders.& For this limited group and for the current period, it would appear that gender parity has been achieved, especially at the top-rated institutions.
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From page 133... ...
Gender differences in rank turn up in all classes of academic institutions but are most accentuated in the top-ranking ones (just the opposite of what is observed among assistant professors)
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From page 134... ...
Gender differences in rates of tenure are significant in some sciences but not in others. Among younger men and women, the tenure picture is more complex.
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From page 135... ...
. It is worth reiterating, however, that without data pertinent to role performance of men and women, it is difficult to say much about the causes of gender differences in rank and tenure.
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. Although it is useful to consider rank in comparing the salaries of men and women scientists, doing so makes for systematic underestimates of gender differences in salary.
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From page 137... ...
Role Performance So far, I have focused on gender differences in rank, tenure, and salary and noted repeatedly that such differences need to be examined in light of possible gender differences in the quality of role performance -- that is, how effectively men and women do their jobs. DO men and women who do their jobs equally well receive the same rank, tenure, and salary?
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From page 138... ...
Third, it is not only feasible to compare men's and womens1 performance (using these admittedly crude indicators) , but it is necessary to do so if the sources and consequences of gender differences in research performance are to be identified.
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From page 139... ...
Detailed analysis of men's and women's publication patterns indicate that the aggregate gender differences are mainly the outcome of differences in the proportions of men and women who publish at a very high rate. As Figure 5 shows, a smaller share of women than men turn up among those who publish large numbers of papers.
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. Should these increases continue among still younger cohorts of women scientists, aggregate gender differences in publication will begin to narrow.
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From page 141... ...
Analysis of citations to the work of matched men and women in six sciences indicates that gender differences in citation are a function of their differences in rates of publication [Cole and Zuckerman, l984; Helmreich and Spence (l982) report contrary findings for psychology]
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Moreover, Cole (l979:l42) reports that the process by which men and women achieve renown appears to differ, again a finding that is not readily explained with the data in hand but plainly important in understanding gender differences in career attainments.
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cMadame Curie, laureate in chemistry for l9ll and in physics for l903, is counted twice. Seven different women have been named Nobel laureates.
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What is known suggests that the general patterns noted earlier seem to hold: women scientists and engineers in industry and government occupy lower ranks, advance more slowly, are paid less, and have less managerial responsibility than men (CEEWISE, l980) , but nothing is known about their relative role performance.
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From page 145... ...
Gender Differences in Scientific Ability There is no support, as I noted earlier, for the claim that the different career attainments of men and women scientists result from gender differences in ability or competence. To the extent that these can be measured by intelligence tests or academic performance, women's abilities equal or surpass those of men.
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From page 146... ...
Processes of Social Selection Explanations of gender differences in career attainments that emphasize gender discrimination, on the one hand, and women's poorer research performance, on the other, both rest on notions of social selection. Social selection processes involve decision making about individuals (here, about their careers)
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From page 147... ...
must be the outcome of gender discrimination. Measuring discrimination by the use of residual differences has its problems, not the least that it requires that appropriate evidence be available on all functionally relevant criteria that could account for gender differences in career attainment (on "residualism" in its various guises in the law and in social science research, see Cole, l979:36ff)
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From page 148... ...
How much, we do not know. Gender Differences as Outcomes of Self-Selection Career attainments are, of course, also shaped by decisions individuals make for themselves, by self-selection as well as by social selection.
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From page 149... ...
In short, women's domestic obligations are not the simple explanation of gender differences in career attainments since, in many respects, married women and women with children fare as well or better than single and childless women. However, the diverse career consequences of marriage and parenthood for men and women have not been identified in anything like the needed detail.
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From page 150... ...
Before we can conclude that accumulation of advantage and disadvantage and related processes of self-selection really do explain why the career attainments of men and women differ and why these differences increase with time, these gender differences in the allocation of resources and rewards need to be examined. A Limited Research Agenda: Domains of Specified Ignorance Finally, a limited number of questions should be earmarked as domains of specified ignorance (Merton, l987)
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4. On changing labor markets: In what measure are the career attainments of men and women scientists and engineers determined by changing labor market conditions?
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From page 152... ...
Believing that they do, some attribute gender differences in career attainments to these attitudinal differences. Others contend that such differences are negligible and that structural barriers faced by women account for differences in career attainments.
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l987. Marriage and motherhood and research performance in science.
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l982. Gender differences in productivity and impact.
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l986. Career Interruptions and Gender Differences in Salaries of Scientists and Engineers.
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l987. Marriage, motherhood and research performance in science.
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From page 157... ...
The first set involves the demographics of science; the second set involves gender differences in scientific performance. Participation in Science There are two components of participation in science that require explanation.
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From page 158... ...
Namely, the average female scientist receives fewer citations for her work over the course of her career and often finds herself in marginal scientific employment, but individual papers by women receive as many citations as individual papers by men. Research I have recently completed, based on nearly 40,000 articles published by 550 male and 600 female biochemists, indicates that while the average male published approximately 60 percent more articles than the average female, the average publication by a female received approximately 20 percent more citations than the average paper by a male.
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From page 159... ...
The Explanations Research on gender differences in science must come to an understanding of the processes that generate differential participation and performance. Yet in going beyond the statement of these basic facts, research is, to borrow a phrase from Zuckerman's paper, "vexingly incoherent and frequently partial." The explanations that have been provided are less convincing than the facts that require explanation.
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From page 160... ...
While discriminatory evaluations may be the focus of gender differences in science, it is important to keep in mind that differences in advancement and participation can also result from universalistic evaluations. For example, slower advancement in rank may result from the lesser seniority and fewer publications of women.
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From page 161... ...
First, family obligations cost women in terms of underemployment and unemployment. Second, marriage and motherhood are not associated with lower levels of publication among female scientists.
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From page 162... ...
This fact is essential for understanding the impact of several of the methodological flaws that are now to be considered. considering the effects of domestic obligations on the productivity and performance of female scientists, it must be kept in mind that female scientists are much less likely to be married than male scientists, and among those who are married, females are less likely to have children.
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