Applications

Finding 3-1: Women accounted for about 17 percent of applications for both tenure-track and tenured positions in the departments surveyed. There was wide variation by field and by department in the number and percentage of female applicants for faculty positions. In general, the higher the percentage of women in the Ph. D. pool, the higher the percentage of women applying for each position in that field, although the fields with lower percentages of women in the Ph. D. pool had a higher propensity for those women to apply (see Table 6-2). The percentage of applicant pools that included at least one woman was substantially higher than would be expected by chance. However, there were no female applicants (only men applied) for 32 (6 percent) of the available tenure-track positions and 16 (16.5 percent) of the tenured positions.

TABLE 6-1 Representation of Women in Faculty Positions at Research I Institutions by Rank and Field (percent), 1995-2003 Assistant Professor Associate Professor Full Professor 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 Agriculture 17.8 18.6 19.6 18.1 27.2 12.7 12.5 10.7 17.6 13.9 4.9 5.2 6.1 6.6 8.0 Biology 35.6 38.2 36.0 37.0 38.8 26.0 24.3 26.3 30.2 31.2 14.0 14.7 15.8 18.0 20.8 Engineering 14.2 12.7 12.8 14.8 16.6 4.8 6.4 9.6 9.3 11.7 1.8 1.4 2.3 2.7 3.8 Health sciences 69.1 66.9 64.0 64.7 66.5 65.6 65.1 64.9 64.5 59.1 35.1 38.9 45.3 48.0 59.0 Mathematics 18.7 22.0 26.5 25.2 26.6 10.4 14.4 14.9 15.8 16.3 7.6 5.9 9.9 10.0 9.7 Physics 25.1 25.6 24.6 25.4 24.1 9.5 13.4 14.8 16.7 19.5 4.3 4.6 5.9 6.8 7.6 SOURCE: National Science Foundation, Survey of Doctorate Recipients, 1995-2003. Tabulated by the National Research Council.

TABLE 6-2 Transitions from Ph. D. to Tenure-Track Positions by Field at the Research I Institutions Surveyed (percent)

Finding 3-3: In each of the six disciplines, the percentage of applications from women for tenure-track positions was lower than the percentage of Ph. D.s awarded to women.

Table 6-2 shows the percentage of women in the pool at each of several key transition points in academic careers: award of Ph. D., application for position, interview, and job offer. In each discipline, the percentage of applications from women was lower than the percentage of doctoral degrees awarded to women. This was particularly the case in chemistry and biology, the two disciplines in the study with the highest percentage of female Ph. D.s. The mean percentage of female applicants for tenure-track positions in chemistry was 18 percent, but women earned 32 percent of the Ph. D.s in chemistry from Research I institutions from 1999-2003. Biology (24 percent in the tenure-track pool and 45 percent in the doctoral pool) also showed a significant difference. Electrical engineering (10 percent in the tenure-track pool and 12 percent in the doctoral pool), mathematics, and physics had modest decreases in the applicant pool.