Descriptive Data

While women are increasingly receiving Ph. D.s in Science and Engineer­ing (S&E), they are still greatly outnumbered by men in terms of applications for Research I positions. For tenure-track jobs, the median number of applica­tions a department receives is 52 applications from men and 8 applications from women—or about 7 applications from men for every application from a woman. For tenured positions, the median number of applications a department receives is 40 applications from men and 8 from women, for a ratio of 5 to 1.[50] Figure 3- 1(a) presents a histogram of the percentage of female applicants for all positions; Figure 3-1(b) presents this information for tenured positions; and Figure 3-1(c) presents this information for tenure-track positions.

Overall, departments received from 1 to 800 applications for their advertised tenure-track positions (n = 626), and 1 to 500 applications for tenured positions (n = 128). Departments recorded only 1 applicant for 17 (3 percent) tenure-track positions and 9 (8 percent) tenured positions. The survey results showed that 3 men and 2 women were hired through “target of opportunity” positions where

FIGURE 3-1(c) Percentage of women among applicants to all tenure-track positions. SOURCE: Survey of departments carried out by the Committee on Gender Differences in Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty.

the position by intention was offered to only 1 candidate, though the rank at hire was not known. Table 3-1 shows the number of cases with complete applicant information by discipline and type of position (tenured or tenure-track). Note that the number of cases across discipline and type of position combinations is roughly similar, so no discipline contributes an inordinate proportion of the data to the analyses that follow.

Another finding is that for job openings for which only individuals of 1 gen­der applied, that gender was more likely to be male. For tenure-track positions, there were only 9 openings for which no men applied (only women applied), and 8 of these were cases in which only 1 woman applied. On the other hand, there were no female applicants (only men applied) for 32 tenure-track positions, or about 6 percent of available positions, with only 9 of these positions having a single applicant. Similar findings were seen for tenured positions. For 2 positions, no men applied. These were the 2 cases in which there was only 1 applicant. Con­versely, no women applied to 16 tenured jobs, or 16.5 percent of the positions; only 7 of these were single-applicant positions. This finding may lend credence to the anecdotal argument sometimes propounded by chairs or search commit­tees that no women applied for particular advertised positions (Brennan, 1996; see especially p. 9).

Considering the data by discipline, in the instance of tenure-track positions, most of the cases (29 of 32) in which only men applied occurred in physics or the engineering fields. For tenured positions, 10 of the 16 cases occurred in chemistry (6) and physics (4). This may reflect the fact that engineering and physics have a lower percentage of female doctorates or that female engineers and physicists are more likely to prefer employment outside of major research universities.

Finally, how do the percentages of female applicants relate to the percent­age of women in the doctoral pool from which departments are drawing? One might expect the proportion of female applicants to be similar to the percentage

of doctorates awarded to women in S&E across each of the disciplines. Table 3-2 suggests that this relationship is more complex. In the table, the second column shows percentages of doctorates awarded to women in the period 1999-2003 by doctorate-granting institutions, while the third column shows percentages of Ph. D.s awarded to women by the subset of Research I institutions.[51] Data on the proportion of women among all applicants for tenure-track jobs by discipline are presented in column four.

In examining Table 3-2, it is important to note that while the second and third columns reflect averages over individuals, the last column relates to the percentage of women averaged over job openings. Thus, the values are not strictly compa­rable. An individual can apply to more than one job and may be counted multiple times as an applicant. If women are more likely to apply to multiple jobs than men, then the percentage of women among applicants is overestimated. Conversely, if women only apply to a few positions while men apply to many, then the average percentage of women applicants (and the rest of the distribution of the percentage of female applicants) is underestimated.

Table 3-2 shows that the percentage of applications from women are consistently lower than the percentage of Ph. D.s awarded to women. There are, however, substantial differences among the disciplines in how much they are lower. In electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics, the percentage of women applying for faculty positions is only modestly lower than the percentage of women receiving Ph. D.s. However, in the fields with the largest representa­tion of women with Ph. D.s—biology and chemistry—the percentage of Ph. D.s awarded to women exceeds the percentage of applications from women by a large amount. This finding should be further explored. Possible explanations that might be tested in follow-on research include:

• Female biology and chemistry doctorates prefer occupations outside of research-intensive institutions relative to men (for example, in higher education, but in liberal arts colleges; in education as K-12 teachers; or in industry or government);

• As the percentage of doctorates awarded to women increases, depart­ments may make fewer special efforts to encourage women to apply for faculty positions; or

• Female Ph. D.s in biology and chemistry apply for fewer jobs than women in other fields relative to men.

The first hypothesis may also, to a greater or lesser extent, hold for the smaller disparities found in civil engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics.

Another study examining the percentage of women in Ph. D. pools relative to the percentage of female faculty also found mixed results (NAS, NAE, and IOM, 2007). Comparing data for faculty who were tenure-track or tenured in 2003 with earlier averages of doctorates revealed that in engineering, chemistry, and the physical sciences, there was a smaller percentage of women in the Ph. D. pool than in assistant professor positions, while in the life sciences, computer sciences, and mathematics, the percentage of women in the pool of doctorates was larger. Comparing the doctoral pool to associate professors in engineering and life sciences, the percentage of women in the pool exceeded the percentage of female associate professors. In computer science, chemistry, the physical sciences, and mathematics, there was a greater percentage of female associate professors. Considering full professors, the percentage of female full professors in most fields was smaller than the percentage of women in the relevant doctoral pool.