Women are underrepresented in high status positions in companies and universities, in part because they are less likely to receive promotions at work than are men.
What is the reason behind this gender gap in promotion? One possibility is that women are less productive than men in their jobs, and promotion decisions are simply rewarding the most productive individuals. Another option is that men and women start off in different types of workplaces, and women’s workplaces could have different promotion processes or expectations that affect their likelihood of promotions. A third possibility is that promotion evaluations themselves contain gender inequality and bias.
In a recent study described here, I tested these three explanations for the gender gap in promotion to tenure in academia, among three disciplines. To do this, I collected and analyzed data on research productivity, school and department context (size, type of university, department prestige, etc.), and promotion outcomes from over 1,500 professors at research universities in three departments.
I find that in Sociology, Computer Science, and English departments, some productivity measures partially account for the gender gap in promotion, but large portions of the gender gap are not explained either by research productivity or by the department/school context. In other words, the results suggest that gender inequality in the promotion evaluation processes are contributing to the gender gap in promotion among professors.
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