Comparative career accomplishments of two decades of women and men doctoral graduates in education

Abstract

Patterns of doctoral study and subsequent career progress were compared for 756 men and women doctoral graduates in education at a research university from two six-year periods, one before and one after a rapid nation-wide increase in the percentage of women doctorates. Despite advantages relative to men in admission, financial support and full-time study, women doctorates of both periods had achieved less career progress than men but held similarly positive perceptions concerning career impact of the degree. Work experience prior to doctoral study strongly predicted career progress for both genders. Thus, affirmative action may have positively affected the careers of recent women doctorates who were younger and who began study with less established careers than women doctorates prior to 1970.Over the past two decades, dramatic sex role changes have occurred which have social, occupational, and educational implications. Although equal rights advocates remain unsatisfied, and affirmative action has not overcome status and salary differentials between the genders, changing college enrollment patterns demonstrate that women are aspiring to higher levels of education and entering fields of endeavor formerly dominated by men (Randour, Strausberg, and Lipman-Blumen, 1982). One consequence of the increasing number of women seeking advanced education is an expanding body of research focusing on the differences in educational experiences of male and female students during graduate study (Solmon, 1973;Berg and Ferber, 1983).Understandably, in order to assess progress toward assimilation of female students, many such studies have focused on fields in which male students