Explaining Gender Differences in Academics' Career Trajectories

TL;DR

This study analyzes global longitudinal data to identify field characteristics that predict gender differences in academic career movements, highlighting the roles of perceived brilliance and STEM fields in gender segregation.

Contribution

It reveals that valuing brilliance and being in STEM fields are key predictors of gender-based career movements across academia, using a comprehensive global dataset.

Findings

Women tend to leave brilliance-oriented and STEM fields more than men.

Men are more likely to move into brilliance-oriented and STEM fields.

Stereotypes linking brilliance and STEM traits to men influence gender segregation.

Abstract

Academic fields exhibit substantial levels of gender segregation. To date, most attempts to explain this persistent global phenomenon have relied on limited cross-sections of data from specific countries, fields, or career stages. Here we used a global longitudinal dataset assembled from profiles on ORCID.org to investigate which characteristics of a field predict gender differences among the academics who leave and join that field. Only two field characteristics consistently predicted such differences: (1) the extent to which a field values raw intellectual talent ("brilliance") and (2) whether a field is in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Women more than men moved away from brilliance-oriented and STEM fields, and men more than women moved toward these fields. Our findings suggest that stereotypes associating brilliance and other STEM-relevant traits with men more than women play a key role in maintaining gender segregation across academia.