1
|
Spoon K, LaBerge N, Wapman KH, Zhang S, Morgan AC, Galesic M, Fosdick BK, Larremore DB, Clauset A. Gender and retention patterns among U.S. faculty. Sci Adv 2023; 9:eadi2205. [PMID: 37862417 PMCID: PMC10588949 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi2205] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/11/2023] [Accepted: 09/14/2023] [Indexed: 10/22/2023]
Abstract
Women remain underrepresented among faculty in nearly all academic fields. Using a census of 245,270 tenure-track and tenured professors at United States-based PhD-granting departments, we show that women leave academia overall at higher rates than men at every career age, in large part because of strongly gendered attrition at lower-prestige institutions, in non-STEM fields, and among tenured faculty. A large-scale survey of the same faculty indicates that the reasons faculty leave are gendered, even for institutions, fields, and career ages in which retention rates are not. Women are more likely than men to feel pushed from their jobs and less likely to feel pulled toward better opportunities, and women leave or consider leaving because of workplace climate more often than work-life balance. These results quantify the systemic nature of gendered faculty retention; contextualize its relationship with career age, institutional prestige, and field; and highlight the importance of understanding the gendered reasons for attrition rather than focusing on rates alone.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Katie Spoon
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Nicholas LaBerge
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - K. Hunter Wapman
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Sam Zhang
- Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | - Allison C. Morgan
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
| | | | - Bailey K. Fosdick
- Department of Biostatistics and Informatics, Colorado School of Public Health, Aurora, CO 80045, USA
| | - Daniel B. Larremore
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
| | - Aaron Clauset
- Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA
- BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
| |
Collapse
|