There is little evidence across the six disciplines that men and women have exhibited different outcomes on most key measures (including publications, grant funding, nominations for international and national honors and awards, salary, and offers of positions in other institutions). On all measures, there were significant differences among disciplines.
Finding 4-9: Overall, male faculty had published marginally more refereed articles and papers in the past 3 years than female faculty, except in electrical engineering, where the reverse was true. Men had published significantly more papers than women in chemistry (men, 15.8; women, 9.4) and mathematics (men, 12.4; women, 10.4). In electrical engineering, women had published marginally more papers than men (women, 7.5; men, 5.8). The differences in the numbers of publications between men and women were not significant in biology, civil engineering, and physics. All the other variables related to the number of published articles and papers (discipline, rank, prestige of institution, access to mentors, and time on research) show the same effects for male and female faculty.
Finding 4-10: Although men were somewhat less likely to be a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on a grant proposal than were women, this difference disappeared when other variables were added in a regression analysis, where male and female faculty did not differ on the probability of having grant funding. Furthermore, because the effect of gender was confounded with the effect of rank and whether the person had a mentor, it is essentially impossible to isolate the effect of gender. The variables that appear to be associated with the probability of having a grant (discipline, faculty rank, being at a high — or medium-prestige university, and spending more time on research) do so in the same way for male and female faculty.
Finding 4-11: Male faculty had significantly more research funding than female faculty in biology; in the other disciplines, the differences between male and female faculty were not significant. There was no overall difference in the amount of grant funding received by male and female faculty, but there was a significant interaction between gender and discipline. The other variables related to the amount of grant funding (faculty rank, whether a faculty member is at a private university, whether a faculty member is at a university of higher prestige, having a mentor, and publishing more) were related in the same way for male and female faculty.
Finding 4-12: Female assistant professors who had a mentor had a higher probability of receiving grants than those who did not have a mentor. In
chemistry, female assistant professors with mentors had a 95 percent probability of having grant funding compared to 77 percent for female assistant professors in chemistry without mentors. A similar but weaker pattern is exhibited for female associate professors. Over all six fields surveyed female assistant professors with no mentors had a 68 percent probability of having grant funding compared to 93 percent of women with mentors. This contrasts with the pattern for male assistant professors; those with no mentor had an 86 percent probability of having grant funding compared to 83 percent for those with mentors.
Finding 4-13: Overall male and female faculty were equally likely to be nominated for international and national honors and awards, but the results varied significantly by discipline, making interpretation challenging. The
other variables affecting the likelihood of being nominated for honors and awards (discipline, faculty rank, prestige of university, number of publications) affected this likelihood in the same way for male and female faculty.
Finding 4-14: Gender was a significant determinant of salary, but only among full professors. Male full professors made, on average, about 8 percent more than women, once we controlled for discipline. At the associate and assistant professor ranks, the differences in salaries of men and women disappeared.
Finding 4-15: Differences in the probability of receiving an outside offer for male and female faculty depended on discipline. In electrical engineering and in mathematics women were more likely to have received an outside offer, while the trend was reversed in chemistry and physics.