Is the Leaky Pipeline in academic careers really still true? Evidences on PhDs in Switzerland

Author(s):

Frank SchubertSonja Engelage

Conference:

ECER 2010

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 08 C, Academic Work and Professional Development

Paper Session

Time:

2010-08-26

17:15-18:45

Room:

M.B. SALI 16, Päärakennus / Main Building

Chair:

Rosemary Deem

Contribution

Although the proportion of women among first-year students reached over fifty percent in recent cohorts, positions in the academic labour market are still highly stratified by gender. Women are strongly underrepresented in higher positions such as among professors. Job specifications, familial commitments and persistent traditional role models seem to restrain careers of women in the scientific community. Also, effects of endowment with social capital and specific practices within academic networks, which discriminate women, result in unequal gender ratios in higher positions in universities. Overall, these career effects are described in the literature as the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon. On the other hand is the proportion of women obtaining the educational entrance criteria to an academic career, the PhD, at Swiss universities constantly increasing. In the 1990s affirmative action programs for women in the public service sector and therefore also in most university-level educational institutions have been introduced in Switzerland as in many other European countries. This leads us to the following research question: Is the strong minority of women among professors in Switzerland a sign of genderspecific disadvantages or just a lingering reminder of genderspecific inequalities of the past?

Method

Using a unique dataset of more than 1’300 Swiss PhDs with their complete educational and professional pathways we compare careers of women and men after their PhD graduation. Differently than in most existing studies we switch from a retrospective analysis of professors and their prior careers to a prospective approach of the probability to successfully start an academic career. Most of the Swiss PhD however has left the university sector within five to ten years after graduation.

Expected Outcomes

Descriptive results show that women possess at the moment of their graduation smaller and less professionally useful social networks. Also women report to be less well mentored during their dissertation period compared to men. In event history models we show that women have a significantly higher probability than men to be employed within university-level education five to ten years after getting their PhD, while holding other predictors of successful scientific careers constant. Further, there are no gender differences in the probability to start or to finish a postdoctoral lecture qualification, which is necessary to apply for a full professorship in german-speaking academic sector. Against all odds: This favourable career prospects are not at the expense of starting a family. Women in scientific careers are neither different in their number of children nor in the proportion of childlessness in comparison to women with a PhD who chose a career track outside the university system.

References

Gross, Christiane, and Monika Jungbauer-Gans. 2007. "Erfolg durch Leistung? Ein Forschungsüberblick zum Thema Wissenschaftskarrieren." Soziale Welt 58:453-471. Kreckel, Reinhard. 2005. "Mehr Frauen in akademischen Spitzenpositionen - nur noch eine Frage der Zeit? Zur Entwicklung von Gleichheit und Ungleichheit zwischen den Geschlechtern." Transit:156-176. Leemann, Regula Julia. 2002a. Chancengleichheiten im Wissenschaftssystem. Wie Geschlecht und soziale Herkunft Karrieren beeinflussen. Chur: Rüegger. Lind, Inken, and Andrea Löther. 2007. "Chancen für Frauen in der Wissenschaft - eine Frage der Fachkultur? Retrospektive Verlaufsanalysen und aktuelle Forschungsergebnisse." Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Bildungswissenschaften 29:249-272. Hargens, Lowell L., and J. Scott Long. 2002. "Demographic Inertia and Women's Representation among Faculty in Higher Education." The Journal of Higher Education 73:494-517. Schubert, Frank, and Sonja Engelage. 2010. "Sind Kinder ein Karrierehindernis für Hochgebildete? Karriere und Familie bei Promovierten in der Schweiz." (in publication) Wennerås, Christine, and Agnes Wold. 1997. "Nepotism and sexism in peer-review." Nature 387:341-343. Blossfeld, Hans-Peter. 2007. Event history analysis with stata. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Author Information

Frank Schubert

Uni Bern

Bern

Sonja Engelage

Uni Bern, Switzerland

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