Do female researchers face a glass ceiling in France? A hazard model of promotions

Abstract

Abstract:Our article aims at testing whether French female researchers face a glass ceiling, an invisible barrier to promotion. Using an original database from the National Institute for Agricultural Research, we estimate duration models of promotions. This methodology allows us to take into account censored observations and unobserved heterogeneity. Our results exhibit a significant gender effect, which does not contradict the glass ceiling hypothesis. Moreover, gender does not have a uniform effect. It interacts with other variables so that there exist factors that accelerate promotion, while others tend to slow it down.Keywords: Promotion, Glass Ceiling, Gender Gap Code JEL: J16, C411 Corresponding author: Mareva Sabatier, UFR ATE, 4 chemin de Bellevue, BP 806, 74016 Annecy Cedex, France.tel.: 00-33-4-50-09-24-59; fax: 00-33-4-50-09-24-10 ; e-mail: mareva.sabatier@univ-savoie.fr 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 I-IntroductionWhatever the profession , the literature provides a large amount of evidence on the underrepresentation of women in senior positions. This suggests that women face a glass ceiling, which limits their promotion. Although academia attracts more and more women, notes that this sector does not seem to escape the glass ceiling phenomenon. The ETAN Report (2000) states that, in all OECD countries, the proportion of females decreases further up the rank ladder. On average, three times more women and twice as many women are founded in the "assistant" (30.5% of women) and "lecturer" positions (20.5% of women) than in the "full professor" grade (10.4%).These statistics seem then to be consistent with the presence of a glass ceiling.But, observed gender differences among academics could be caused by gender disparities in different activities. For example, Schneider (1998) notes that women are found more in pedagogical activities. This could explain why they tend to publish less and why they are less likely to be promoted. So, in order to establish the existence of a glass ceiling in academia, other factors that affect careers must be taken into account. Only an econometric analysis will allow this ceteris paribus analysis.However, microeconometric studies are relatively scarce and most of them have focused on wages. On the basis of Mincer equations, studies generally find significant wage gaps between men and women, even after controlling for individual characteristics, publication scores, department characteristics and so forth. Using American data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients (SDR), 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 . Second, estimated wage gaps are mainly caused by gender differences in observable he...

Time to Tenure in Spanish Universities: An Event History Analysis

“…This result is in line with some recent work reporting that career trajectories of men and women are converging at junior levels (access to associate professor) and that men have only a very slight or non significant advantage in terms of first promotion [18,86]. One interesting element when we run independent models for males and females is the fact that university service was significant in the case of males and contributed to the reduction of time in getting a permanent job; this result is consistent with findings regarding a research institution in France [30]. …”

“…To complement the information gleaned from the questionnaires and considering that scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals are generally accepted as one of the most important elements for career advancement [30], we constructed a database of individual pre-tenure publication records in journals between 1990 and 2004 included in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI) from Thomson–Reuters, by matching the names of the individuals in our survey. In the questionnaires respondents were asked to identify a few personal publications, the regular way of signing academic papers and offered the opportunity to submit a full CV.…”

“…The seminal work by Long et al [24] was an exception; more recently, users of longitudinal approaches have addressed the time to promotion differences between male and female academics, with a focus on gender gaps [25] and the effects of marriage and parenting [26,27], rather than on the general factors that account for promotion and its timing, which has been the case for other countries like Taiwan [28], Canada [29], and France [30]. …”

Personality and the gender wage gap

“…Men used deception/manipulation and industrious/knowledgeableness tactics more often while social display/networking tactics were reported to be used most frequently by women. In the same vein, Sabatier (2008) reports evidence that promotion strategies are different for males and females. The gender-specific use of tactics represents an alternative explanation for the gender wage gap since there may be an indirect effect of personality on wage through its relation with tactic use.…”

Job Characteristics and Labor Market Discrimination in Promotions: New Theory and Empirical Evidence

“…As a whole, the international evidence is somewhat less favorable to women than is the evidence based on US data. Studies finding lower promotion rates for women include Bamberger, Admati-Dvir, and Harel's (1995) study of two Israeli high-tech companies; Pekkarinen and Vartianinen's (2004) analysis of panel data on Finnish metalworkers; Sabatier and Carrere's (2005) analysis of academic researchers in France; and Ranson and Reeves' (1995) study of computer professionals in a western Canadian city. Wright, Baxter, and Birkelund (1995) compare the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, Sweden, Norway, and Japan, concluding that evidence of lower promotion rates for women is weaker in the U.S. than for the other countries.…”