How parenthood contributes to gender gaps in academia

Zheng, Xiang; Yuan, Haimiao; Ni, Chong

doi:10.7554/elife.78909

Cited by 17 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 52 publications

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“…Shocking testimonials collected in our global survey reveal that entrenched gender stereotypes and maternity biases are pervasive in STEMM [31] (Surgrue et al unpublished data). Motherhood has also been associated with a reduction in scientific productivity in a handful of intra-national and field-specific studies, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive [32,33]. As a result of these attritions, female scholars are more likely to delay or renounce parenthood and have fewer children than their male counterparts [24,32].…”

Section: The Maternal Wall Drives the Stemm Leaky Pipelinementioning

confidence: 99%

Policy proposals to promote inclusion of caregivers in the research funding system: a call for change

Torres¹,

Collins²,

Hertz³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The COVID-19 pandemic has unmasked a deeply flawed research funding system riddled by inequitable policies, biased evaluations, and a lack of transparency and accountability. While most scientists were affected by the pandemic to some extent, evidence shows that women with caregiving responsibilities were disproportionately impacted, with long-term effects on their careers. However, despite calls for change by scientists globally, whose careers depend largely on funding success, decision-makers have made little to no effort to reform a funding system that marginalises a large proportion of researchers, including women, and especially mothers. Here, we propose a set of specific and actionable policies to promote inclusion of caregivers and close the gender gap in research funding.

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Section: The Maternal Wall Drives the Stemm Leaky Pipelinementioning

confidence: 99%

Policy proposals to promote inclusion of caregivers in the research funding system: a call for change

Torres¹,

Collins²,

Hertz³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Women are also found to receive fewer citations and lower salaries for their research [42,43]. While researchers suggested various factors contributing to the observed gender disparities in academia, including unbalanced research activities [42], gender gaps in parenthood [44], and unfair credit distribution [45], teaching may also come into play. Women professors often take on heavier teaching loads than men, leaving less time for research [46].…”

Section: Gender Disparities In Academia and Teaching Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualizing gender disparities in online teaching evaluations for professors

Zheng

Vastrad²,

He³

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

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Student evaluation of teaching (SET) is widely used to assess teaching effectiveness in higher education and can significantly influence professors’ career outcomes. Although earlier evidence suggests SET may suffer from biases due to the gender of professors, there is a lack of large-scale examination to understand how and why gender disparities occur in SET. This study aims to address this gap in SET by analyzing approximately 9 million SET reviews from RateMyProfessors.com under the theoretical frameworks of role congruity theory and shifting standards theory. Our multiple linear regression analysis of the SET numerical ratings confirms that women professors are generally rated lower than men in many fields. Using the Dunning log-likelihood test, we show that words used in student comments vary by the gender of professors. We then use BERTopic to extract the most frequent topics from one- and five-star reviews. Our regression analysis based on the topics reveals that the probabilities of specific topics appearing in SET comments are significantly associated with professors’ genders, which aligns with gender role expectations. Furtherly, sentiment analysis indicates that women professors’ comments are more positively or negatively polarized than men’s across most extracted topics, suggesting students’ evaluative standards are subject to professors’ gender. These findings contextualize the gender gap in SET ratings and caution the usage of SET in related decision-making to avoid potential systematic biases towards women professors.

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“…Zheng et al . [ 18 ] used surveys in combination with biobliometric data to discover that gender gaps in academic achievement are, in fact, ‘parenthood gender gaps’. They also show that mothers are more negatively affected because they experience a higher level of work-family conflict and lower levels of support from their partner.…”

Section: What Are the Most Prominent Factors Driving The Leak Of Wome...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They also show that this gap has been decreasing in recent years as a consequence of increasing availability of parental leave and appropriate childcare. Zheng et al [18] used surveys in combination with biobliometric data to discover that gender gaps in academic achievement are, in fact, 'parenthood gender gaps'. They also show that mothers are more negatively affected because they experience a higher level of work-family conflict and lower levels of support from their partner.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sticky steps and the gender gap: how thoughtful practices could help keep caregivers in science

2022

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Many fewer women than men hold senior academic positions, a widely recognized and increasing problem. Our goal is to identify effective and feasible solutions. We begin by providing an in-depth assessment of the drivers of this gender inequity. In our synthesis of existing data, we provide many lines of evidence highlighting caregiving as a primary main factor. This is not a ‘new’ insight per se, but a point worth repeating that we back up by a strong and synthetic body of recent data. We also believe that our analysis provides a step forward in tackling a complex issue. We then develop a more detailed understanding of the challenges academic caregivers face and discuss whether and why it is important to keep caregivers in science. We find that the attrition due to caregiving should not be seen as a factor but rather as a process with multiple ‘sticky steps’ that eventually drive caregivers out of science—which, as we argue, is partly also good news. Indeed, it is here that we believe actions could be taken that would have a real impact: for example, one could effectively increase and expand upon current funding practices that focus on caregiver career advancement.

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How parenthood contributes to gender gaps in academia

Cited by 17 publications

References 52 publications

Policy proposals to promote inclusion of caregivers in the research funding system: a call for change

Policy proposals to promote inclusion of caregivers in the research funding system: a call for change

Contextualizing gender disparities in online teaching evaluations for professors

Sticky steps and the gender gap: how thoughtful practices could help keep caregivers in science

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