Predictors of Gender Inequalities in the Rank of Full Professor

Abstract

This article examines whether age, work-related, and family-related predictors explain differences in the academic advancement of women and men in Iceland. Survey data were analyzed by binary logistic regression. The findings put that women climb the academic career ladder at a slower pace than men. This finding puts one of the widely known excuses for the underrepresentation of women in full professor positions into jeopardy, namely that this is because of family responsibilities. Work-related variables explain some of the gender differences. The study shows that as promotion is slower among women, even if family-related variables are not negatively affecting the odds, the academic pipeline is leaking despite Iceland's reputation for being at the forefront where gender equality issues are concerned.Gender equality continues to raise substantial academic interest, not only externally but also within the academic environment. It is a worldwide phenomenon that women are a minority in full professorial positions; a variety of causes have been identified over the years, ranging from external and internal to structural and individual explanations. Optimistic scholars believe that the global trend of women entering universities as freshmen in larger quantities than men will eventually solve the gender difference in full professorial positions. However, this "pipeline" metaphor has been criticized for being simplistic (Heijstra,

Research performance and age explain less than half of the gender pay gap in New Zealand universities

“…Indeed women are promoted more slowly through academia [27]. In Japan, parental and marital status help explain gender differences in promotion rates [27], while in Scandinavia they do not [28].…”

“It’s a Man Who Runs the Show”: How Women Middle-Managers Experience Their Professional Position, Opportunities, and Barriers

“…The pipeline appears to leak, and at its upper limits, an increasing number of women have been flushed out for one reason or another; hence the term leaky pipeline (Blickenstaff, 2005). Research in the Icelandic academia has found that the pipeline is leaking and fewer women reach the position of full professor (Heijstra et al, 2015).…”

The Italian University Habilitation and the Challenge of Increasing the Representation of Women in Academia

“…It is a good sign that Italian female applications to the 2012 University habilitation are now the majority at the associate professor level for about one quarter of the sub-fields, including popular subjects such as molecular biology, human anatomy and biochemistry. This result does not rule out that gender bias might still operate in these fields [61], so that it is important to carry on removing barriers to women careers also in academic fields where female researchers are now the majority of applications to the University habilitation [62][63][64][65]. Further research could investigate gender bias in (1) how long researchers stay in the same academic position without career development, and (2) application success rates of researchers participating to the national habilitation competition with or without a tenure track or a permanent position.…”