Globally, female participation in academia has witnessed a great increase. At both European and country level, women published a similar number of publications at early stages of their career as male counterparts between 2015 and 2019 (She Figures 2021,2021). Yet, evidence across countries reveals that women are still underrepresented in academic leadership positions, and the phenomenon of “pipeline leakage” (Sonnert&Holton,1996) exists in the career development of female researchers.

One way to better increase representation of women in both tenured and administrative academic positions is to focus on the career development pattern of female scientists who have established themselves in positions of academic leadership. By exploring their career development regularity, it will provide reference for the relevant institutions to develop policies that better meet the career development needs of female academics and support their career development.

Guided by Bernardi’s conceptualization of the life course cube (2019), the purpose of this mixed study is to trace the career development experiences of female academicians in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, aiming to understand how they have pursued their professional careers. Specifically, this study will attempt to answer the following research questions: What are the common factors that contribute to the career development of Chinese female academicians?

The theory of the life course cube stems from the paradigm of life course research. Elder defined the life course as "the life path manifested through age differentiation over the course of a person's life"(Elder,1994), and it focuses on the development and changes of individuals throughout their entire life course, which aligns with the analysis of the career development experiences of female academicians in this study, especially the opportunities and challenges they face at different stages of their career development.

Particularly, the life course cube identifies a system of complex interdependencies. At the most basic level are three ‘first-order" interdependencies related to time, domains, and levels. These represent the core axes of the cube: (1) The time-related interdependence of the life course between the history of a life course, current life circumstances, and the future life course. (2) The interdependence between life domains, meaning that individuals’ goals, resources, and behaviors in one domain (such as work, family, education, or leisure) are interrelated with other domains. (3) The multilevel interdependence of the life course, which connects individual action and behavior over the life course (‘individual-action levels’) with the life courses of other people, social networks, and the ‘external’ societal opportunity structure (‘supra-individual levels’) and the ‘internal’ dispositions and psycho-physiological functioning (‘inner-individual levels’) (Bernardi et al.,2019).

Building on life course theory and by reviewing existing research on factors related to the career development of female researchers, this study explores the factors and their dynamic relationships that contribute to the career advancement of Chinese female academicians at three levels: supra-individual levels, individual action level, and inner-individual levels. (1) Supra-individual levels variables include the female researchers' social relationship (family relationship, mentorship relationship and collaborative relationship), organizational culture (gender equality policies, compensation systems and flexible arrangements, etc.), and the broader socio-cultural context (economic conditions, political environment and cultural customs, etc.). (2) Individual-action levels variables include educational background (institutions), mobility experiences (domestic and international mobility) and research ability (publications and patents). (3) Inner-individual levels factors refer to personal traits, including talent, interests, and willpower, etc.

This study adopts an explanatory sequential design. In the quantitative research, the Curriculum Vitae analysis method was used to collect data on birthplaces, alma maters, mobility experiences, research competence (h-index, citation counts the number of publications and the number of patents), and the years of receiving the academician title of female academicians in the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering. The data sources include official websites of their affiliated institutions, the Scopus and the incoPat. The growing cycle of career of female academicians is defined as the time period starting from their undergraduate education to the point of obtaining the title of academician. Using Stata/SE 14.1 to carry out descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA and correlation analyses, this study hypothesized the following relationships between various variables and the growing cycle: (1) H1: There is a correlation between the reputations of the graduate institutions and the growing cycle; (2) H2: There are differences in the growing cycle among female academicians who studied at a single institution, two institutions, and three institutions; (3) H3: There are differences in the growing cycle between female academicians with domestic work mobility experiences and those without; (4) H4: There are differences in the growing cycle between female academicians with international work mobility experiences and those without; (5) H5: There is a correlation between the h-index and the growing cycle of female academicians; (6) H6: There is a correlation between citation counts and the growing cycle of female academicians; (7) H7: There is a correlation between the number of publications and the growing cycle of female academicians; (8) H8: There is a correlation between the number of patents and the growing cycle of female academicians. For the qualitative data, the researcher employed convenience sampling to select female academicians for semi-structured interviews until theoretical saturation was reached. Considering the difficulty of accessing academicians, interviews and documentaries from mainstream media serve as supplementary materials. The interview outline was designed around the theoretical framework of this study. Applying thematic analysis, the interview transcripts were processed in the following sequence: familiarization with the data, initial coding, identifying themes, adjusting and refining themes, defining and naming themes, and writing the report (Braun&Clarke,2006). Through the constant comparison between new data and exiting categories, the researcher was able to identify the theoretical relationship among the themes.

Results show that there are currently 115 female academicians in China. Their growing cycle averages 36.1 years. (1) At the supra-individual levels, female academicians are more likely to originate from economically developed regions. 67% of female academicians were born in economically developed areas in eastern China, while only 13% come from underdeveloped regions in the western part of the country. Family support is another supra-individual factor in the career development of women academicians, some of whom mentioned that their success was due in part to the fact that family members took on their responsibilities and duties as mothers, daughters and wives. (2) At the individual-action levels, outstanding research competence and good institutional reputations are important factors in obtaining the title of academician. Among them, a correlation analysis was conducted between the h-index and the growing cycle of academicians, resulting in a correlation coefficient of -0.3529 (P < 0.01), indicating that the higher the h-index of female academicians, the shorter their growing cycle. Similar patterns were observed in the correlation between citation, publication, patent invention, institutional reputations and the growing cycle. However, the effect of mobility experiences, and the plurality of graduating institutions on the growing cycle of women academicians was not significant. (3) At the inner-individual levels, almost all reports on female academicians mention that they have shown a passion for science, exceptional learning abilities, and strong determination from a young age, which have played a crucial role in their success in the field of science. The above findings are preliminary exploratory results. Further analysis and explanation will be conducted in future research to explore more related factors and the interdependencies among the three levels of factors, as well as summarize the whole pattern of career development of female academicians.

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