Much has been written in the past two decades about women in academic science careers, but this literature is contradictory. Many analyses have revealed a level playing field, with men and women faring equally, whereas other analyses have suggested numerous areas in which the playing field is not level. The only widely-agreed-upon conclusion is that women are underrepresented in college majors, graduate school programs, and the professoriate in those fields that are the most mathematically intensive, such as geoscience, engineering, economics, mathematics/computer science, and the physical sciences. In other scientific fields (psychology, life science, social science), women are found in much higher percentages. In this monograph, we undertake extensive life-course analyses comparing the trajectories of women and men in math-intensive fields with those of their counterparts in non-math-intensive fields in which women are close to parity with or even exceed the number of men. We begin by examining early-childhood differences in spatial processing and follow this through quantitative performance in middle childhood and adolescence, including high school coursework. We then focus on the transition of the sexes from high school to college major, then to graduate school, and, finally, to careers in academic science. The results of our myriad analyses reveal that early sex differences in spatial and mathematical reasoning need not stem from biological bases, that the gap between average female and male math ability is narrowing (suggesting strong environmental influences), and that sex differences in math ability at the right tail show variation over time and across nationalities, ethnicities, and other factors, indicating that the ratio of males to females at the right tail can and does change. We find that gender differences in attitudes toward and expectations about math careers and ability (controlling for actual ability) are evident by kindergarten and increase thereafter, leading to lower female propensities to major in math-intensive subjects in college but higher female propensities to major in non-math-intensive sciences, with overall science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors at 50% female for more than a decade. Post-college, although men with majors in math-intensive subjects have historically chosen and completed PhDs in these fields more often than women, the gap has recently narrowed by two thirds; among non-math-intensive STEM majors, women are more likely than men to go into health and other people-related occupations instead of pursuing PhDs. Importantly, of those who obtain doctorates in math-intensive fields, men and women entering the professoriate have equivalent access to tenure-track academic jobs in science, and they persist and are remunerated at comparable rates-with some caveats that we discuss. The transition from graduate programs to assistant professorships shows more pipeline leakage in the fields in which women are already very prevalent (psychology, life science, s...

The percentage of economics doctorates awarded to women has increased over the past twenty years. This article considers whether women Ph.D. economists have increased their representation in academia, particularly at higher tenured ranks. Our study draws upon several empirical approaches and multiple data sets for the 1990s. We find that when compared with other academic disciplines, women in economics are less likely to get tenure and take longer to achieve it. Although gender differences in productivity and the effect of children on promotion partly explain women's lesser chances of receiving tenure in economics, a significant portion of the gender promotion gap remains unexplained by observable characteristics.

Purpose To analyze the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, and the probability of being awarded an R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Method The authors used data from the NIH Information for Management, Planning, Analysis, and Coordination grants management database for the years 2000–2006 to examine gender differences and race/ethnicity-specific gender differences in the probability of receiving an R01 Type 1 award. The authors used descriptive statistics and probit models to determine the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, degree, investigator experience, and R01 award probability, controlling for a large set of observable characteristics. Results White women PhDs and MDs were as likely as white men to receive an R01 award. Compared with white women, Asian and black women PhDs and black women MDs were significantly less likely to receive funding. Women submitted fewer grant applications, and blacks and women who were new investigators were more likely to submit only one application between 2000 and 2006. Conclusions Differences by race/ethnicity explain the NIH funding gap for women of color, as white women have a slight advantage over men in receiving Type 1 awards. Findings of a lower submission rate for women and an increased likelihood that they will submit only one proposal are consistent with research showing that women avoid competition. Policies designed to address the racial and ethnic diversity of the biomedical workforce have the potential to improve funding outcomes for women of color.

Many studies have shown that women are under-represented in tenured ranks in the sciences. We evaluate whether gender differences in the likelihood of obtaining a tenure track job, promotion to tenure, and promotion to full professor explain these facts using the 1973-2001 Survey of Doctorate Recipients. We find that women are less likely to take tenure track positions in science, but the gender gap is entirely explained by fertility decisions. We find that in science overall, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor after controlling for demographic, family, employer and productivity covariates and that in many cases, there is no gender difference in promotion to tenure or full professor even without controlling for covariates. However, family characteristics have different impacts on women's and men's promotion probabilities. Single women do better at each stage than single men, although this might be due to selection. Children make it less likely that women in science will advance up the academic job ladder beyond their early post-doctorate years, while both marriage and children increase men's likelihood of advancing. Fewer women are present in science academe than in the workforce as a whole and particularly in the higher levels of academe -such as tenured jobs and full professorships at major research universities. This paper begins from the point when scientists receive their Ph.D.s and investigates gender differences as they move up the academic career ladder, getting tenure track jobs, being granted tenure, and being promoted to full professorships. In contrast to these negative findings, Long et.al. (2001) studies the careers of women in science from 1973-1995 and conclude that women have been successful in moving "from scarcity to visibility." They find that the impact of marriage and children on women's careers had largely been eliminated by 1995, although men were still 4 percent more likely to receive tenure. On the other hand, Xie and Shauman (2003) find that marriage and children exacerbate gender differences in promotion in nonacademic science. In addition, they find the gender publication gap is smaller than in previous studies and declining over time, suggesting a convergence in women's and men's academic productivity.A recent report by the NSF (NSF 2004b) is the most comprehensive study to date of the factors contributing to promotion in academic careers of scientists and engineers. This work, carried out contemporaneously to ours and also using NSF's longitudinal Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), finds that controlling for human capital, personal characteristics and institutional factors, there remains a significant female disadvantage in the likelihood of being in a tenure track job, of receiving tenure and of being promoted to full. However, in most of their 3 specifications, they find that these gender differences become statistically insignificant when family characteristics are allowed to affect men and women differently. Our findings are quite ...

We are pleased to inform you that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have agreed upon the following definition of a postdoctoral scholar: An individual who has received a doctoral degree (or equivalent) and is engaged in a temporary and definedperiod of mentored advanced training to enhance the professional skills and research independence needed to pursue his or her chosen career path.

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