Universalism, Ascription and Academic Rank: Canadian Professors, 1987–2000*

Abstract

L'auteur se penche sur le classement par rang des professeurs canadiens en s'appuyant sur deux enquêtes réalisées en 1987 et en 2000. Il émet cinq hypothèses: a) les publications, l'expérience et l'obtention d'un Ph.D. sont les principaux éléments influençant le classement par rang; b) les hommes blancs et ceux qui sont nés au Canada sont avantagés dans le classement par rang; c) les femmes et les membres des minorités visibles ont été moins désavantagés au cours des derniéres années; d) l'interaction de l'avancement et de l'attribution favorise les Blancs, les hommes et les personnes qui sont nées au Canada, mais dans une moindre mesure pour les deux premiers groupes depuis quelques annees; et e) finalement, de telles interactions avantagent les professeurs enseignant les sciences naturelles plus que les autres disciplines. Les résultats appuient (a) et (b), mais sont mitigés concernant (c) et (d). Ils ne corroborent pas (e). This paper examines rank placement of Canadian professors based on two surveys conducted in 1987 and 2000. Five hypotheses are pursued: a) publication, experience and possession of Ph.D. are the main ingredients of placement in ranks; b) males, Whites and those born in Canada are advantaged in rank placement; c) women and visible minorities have been less disadvantaged in recent years; d) the interaction of achievement and ascription favours Whites, males and those born in Canada, but less so for the first two groups in recent years; and finally e) such interactions favour professors in the natural sciences more than in other disciplines. Results support (a) and (b) but are mixed regarding (c) and (d). They do not support (e).

What happens before? A field experiment exploring how pay and representation differentially shape bias on the pathway into organizations.

“…Such studies have revealed persistently worse treatment of both women and minorities relative to White males in pay (Barbezat, 1991;Ransom and Megdal, 1993;Ginther, 2006;Toutkoushian, 1998), promotions (Cole, 1979;Long, Allison, and McGuinness., 1993;Perna, 2001;Ginther, 2006), job prospects (Sonnert, 1990;Kolpin and Singell, 1996;Nakhaie, 2007), and funding opportunities (Ginther et al, 2011). However, these correlational studies are subject to the criticism that they omitted one or more potentially important but unobservable control variables (e.g., see Erickson, 2011).…”

Pay Structure, Female Representation and the Gender Pay Gap among University Professors

“…Some studies have found gender gaps in research productivity (Cole and Zuckerman, 1984;Nakhaie, 2002Nakhaie, , 2007Xie and Shauman, 2003). While there is not space for a detailed review of the research on gender differences in research productivity, there are reasons for thinking that controlling for productivity would not change our results.…”

“…There is some evidence that women receive less than their fair share of research funding (MIT, 1999). There is also evidence that their research contributions have been less valued than those of males (Wennerås and Wold, 1997;Nakhaie, 2007). Insofar as this is the case, controlling for productivity may lead to an underestimate of female disadvantage.…”

Time to Tenure in Spanish Universities: An Event History Analysis

“…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]. …”

“…In addition, age and age at PhD (we take the latter variable because most previous studies confirm it as the start date of the academic career) have been reported to be important variables to account for productivity [61] and for advancement in careers [29]. Although sometimes the literature has presented promotion as a process shaped by seniority and age [62], in aggregated terms, the results are somewhat contradictory: the majority of work finds that the younger the age at PhD graduation, the faster the career advancement, despite some seniority effects reported.…”