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Aine Seitz McCarthy
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Gendered academic pipeline

12/18/2012

3 Comments

 
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Well, we are approaching hiring season in academia, and my department is no exception this year. The influx of candidate job talks, free lunches, CV attachments, solicited and unsolicited opinions gets me thinking about gender, of course. And while my peers are probably sick of my persistent gender-based inquiry, I tend to question both our intuitive and professional perceptions of candidates.

There's a long pipeline towards tenure, which includes publication, hiring and dissertating along the way. The evidence of the gender gap in publications, by subject, is glaring according to JSTOR and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

These graphics and facts beg the question as to what combination of factors might cause this problem. And I'm quite sure that the gender bias in academic hiring is one of these factors. This research tested what I only hypothesized. Using a double-blind study to measure the effect of male or female names on judged competence, hireability and mentoring, the authors find that both male and female academic scientists rated women consistently lower. Keep in mind, this was based on the exact same application materials, the only difference was the gender of the applicant's name.

What is the source of this bias? I have a few untested hypotheses. I think women tend to be judged more harshly on their personalities, more than just strictly their professional work (although, this of course doesn't explain all the paper discrimination). And I think as much as we'd not like to admit it, implicit biases still linger in our social perceptions. Forbes has a few ideas about limiting negative stereotypes of successful women, as well. Overall, the fact that the gap is huge and that the bias empirically exists are reasons enough to critically question our opinions of candidates for academic positions. Or at least to start a discussion about pants suits.

Hat tip: COC, NAJ,



3 Comments
Joe McCarthy
12/18/2012 11:16:36 am

Could it be that women pursuing PhDs are idiots?

Reply
Travis
12/19/2012 12:47:08 am

"Inaccurate initial priors lead to diminished human capital investment among members of the undervalued group and may generate inequities lasting many periods or even permanently."

Amy Farmer, Dek Terrell. "DISCRIMINATION, BAYESIAN UPDATING OF EMPLOYER BELIEFS, AND HUMAN CAPITAL ACCUMULATION." Economic Inquiry, 1996

In other words (statistically speaking), employers have the most prior information on white males. This makes their expected return-on-investment variance smaller, which in turn makes them the least risky gamble, regardless of the true valuation. I think this is what you meant by a "lingering bias."

Reply
Aine Seitz McCarthy link
1/6/2013 08:44:59 am

Thanks for the statistical interpretation of lingering bias, Travis. Since this evidence is out there, in research and statistical comparisons, I think this justifies my inquisitive questions about why exactly we hold certain opinions about candidates or professors.

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    Aine Seitz McCarthy

    International development, economics and some pretty ambitious ideas from a stubborn graduate student clinging to her sense of adventure.


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