Finding 4-3: Men and women seem to have been treated equally when they were hired. The overall size of start-up packages and the specific resources of reduced initial teaching load, travel funds, and summer salary did not differ between male and female faculty.
Finding 4-4: Male and female faculty supervised about the same number of research assistants and postdocs. (Appendix 4-5)
Finding 4-5: There were some resources where male faculty appeared to have an advantage. These included the amount of laboratory space (considering both faculty overall and only those who do experimental research), access to equipment needed for research, and access to clerical support. At first glance, men seemed to have more lab space than women, but the difference disappeared once other factors such as discipline and faculty rank were accounted for. Insofar as the research a faculty member does is dependent on these resources, and the ability to accomplish as much as possible in turn determines his or her overall success, gender differences in these institutional resources could lead to gender differences in success.
At the same time, it should be noted that the apparent gender differences in access to these resources may reflect differences in access based on discipline or rank, because some disciplines and ranks have a higher perecntage of male faculty, and those disciplines and ranks could also have more lab space and equipment. This suggestion is supported by the finding that grant funding and research type (experimental versus nonexperimental) were significantly associated with the allocation of lab space. Since there are proportionately more male faculty than female faculty in some disciplines than in others, and since there are proportionately more male faculty than female faculty among full professors than among associate and assistant professors, it seems likely that the simple gender difference in lab space is actually a function of discipline and rank differences, as well as prestige of the institution. (Figure 4-2)