Gender Differences in Academic Productivity and Advancement Among Dental School Faculty

Abstract

Background: An equal number of women and men are now graduating from dental school, but women dentists have lower income and are less likely to achieve positions of leadership, including within dental academia. Materials and Methods: Demographic information and academic rank were obtained for all faculty at the eight dental schools who received the most funding from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research in 2017. Years since dental school graduation, total number of PubMed-indexed citations, first-and last-author publications, and H-index were determined for each faculty member. Gender differences in productivity and advancement were evaluated. Results: Of 702 faculty members, 36.5% were female; only 24.4% of full professors were women. Men had significantly higher numbers of publications (30.2 [95% confidence interval [CI, 28.6-39.5] vs. 20.4 [95% CI 16.3-24.6], p = 0.02) and higher H-index (8.2 [95% CI 7.1-9.1] vs. 4.7 [95% CI 3.9-5.5], p < 0.0001). Women had graduated more recently than their male colleagues at all levels of academic advancement (overall 22.83 years [95% CI 21.29-24.39] vs. 30.19 years [95% CI 28.84-31.55], p < 0.0001). When corrected for academic productivity and years since graduation, the association between gender and academic rank was not significant. Conclusions: Women are underrepresented at each academic rank except instructor; however, women may advance more quickly than their male counterparts. Increasing scholarship and mentorship opportunities for female faculty members may help improve gender equity in dental academia.

Investigating gender differences in journal selection decisions: A survey of academic researchers

“…This research seeks to contribute to understanding of the role of gender in influencing achievement and progression in higher education, by focussing on researchers' decision‐making processes regarding journal choice. Prior research has identified a number of possible factors that might influence the career progression of women in universities, including: bias in hiring academic staff (Van den Besselaar & Sandström, 2016), under‐representation in the academic workforce (Simon et al ., 2019), cultural context (Gomez Cama, Jorge & Andrades, 2016), structural gaps in career advancement for women (Filandri & Pasqua, 2019), and choice of discipline (Thelwall, Bailey, Tobin, & Bradshaw, 2019). Other researchers have focussed more closely on whether the publishing process has any embedded bias (Fox & Paine, 2019; Madison & Fahlman, 2020), and whether editors adopted a ‘gender blind’ approach (Lundine et al ., 2019).…”

“…They are ‘towing the line’ and paying more attention than do men to the expectations placed upon researchers who seek to develop their career. Women understand what they need to do to succeed, but maybe ‘ Being good isn't good enough ’ (Filandri & Pasqua, 2019, p.1), since recent articles still report significant gender differences in output of scholarly publications (Clark & Horton, 2019; Madison & Fahlman, 2020; Simon et al ., 2019; Thelwall, Bailey, Makita, et al ., 2019). According to the UK news media (The Guardian and Nature), this situation has been exacerbated recently by the coronavirus pandemic, during which there are assertions that there is a decline in submission of articles from women, while articles from men have increased.…”

“…(2018, p. 1754) refer to the ‘gendered system of academic publishing’. Others suggest that there is a bias in the hiring of academic staff and that this impacts on women's publishing and career profiles (Van den Besselaar & Sandström, 2016), possibly leading to under‐representation of women in the academic workforce (Simon et al ., 2019). Gomez Cama, Jorge and Andrades (2016) argue that the cultural context, which may vary significantly between countries and regions, impacts significantly on women's representation in academia, while Filandri and Pasqua (2019) suggest that there is a structural gender gap in career advancement in universities.…”

Nursing Faculty Shortage in Canada: A Review of Contributing Factors

“…Lastly, our findings showcased the unique role that personal factors play in influencing nurse faculty recruitment and retention, as it may either hasten or delay decisions of staff nurses from entering academia and/or an experienced faculty to retire (Kirkham, 2016). Although gender was not overtly discussed in any of the reviewed articles, gender-based stress factors are important to address because nursing is a predominantly female-dominated profession and most female academics tend to deal with stress differently (Simon et al, 2019). It is a widely held view that gender differences play important role in faculty work-life and research productivity, and therefore, addressing the gender-based stress factors and issues during the recruitment process and post hire may provide a unique insight and a useful extension to existing research (Counter et al, 2020).…”

“…It is a widely held view that gender differences play important role in faculty work-life and research productivity, and therefore, addressing the gender-based stress factors and issues during the recruitment process and post hire may provide a unique insight and a useful extension to existing research (Counter et al, 2020). Past studies (Jolly et al, 2014;Simon et al, 2019) found that female academics experience more stress from high expectations, teaching responsibilities, time constraints and general stress compared to men. In particular, non-tenured faculty members appear to experience the most stress and full professors experience the least stress (Cama et al, 2016).…”