February/March 2010
Differences in Career Paths of Female and Male Faculty in the US
by Shani D. Carter, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Rhode Island College
A study to be presented by Shani D. Carter of Rhode Island College at the annual conference of the Academy of Human Resource Development on February 24 to 28, 2010 in Knoxville, Tennessee compares the career paths of female and male faculty in the United States from 1988 to 2004.
Thus, the career paths are such that a large percentage of men moved up in rank and settled at full professor, but most women did not. In fact, the percentage of women who are full professors has been only half the percentage of men who are full professors over the 16 year period. These career paths are illustrated in Figures 1 and 2 below, which show the percentage of female and male professors by rank for 1988 and 2004, respectively.
In the field of business, there are even greater differences
between the career paths of men and women as seen in Figures 3 and 4
below. Specifically, for men and women, in 1988, the majority of
faculty were at the instructor level. By 2004, the majority of women
were still at the instructor level, but the majority of men had
moved to the full professor level. In other words, business schools
had begun to decrease their use of faculty at the instructor level,
but these decreases were made in the numbers of men, while women
continued to be heavily represented at the low rank. Further, the percentage of all women who were full professors increased only slightly, while the percentage of all men who were full professors increased greatly.
This trend was also noticed within 2008–09 AACSB business school salary data. In the most recent Global Salary Survey, both female tenured and non-tenured track faculty earned less than their male colleagues. This is not the first year in which this pattern has occured. As far as for annual salary raises for both males and females that were tenured or on a tenure-track, increases appeared to occur at similar rates. However, there are gaps that remain between the earnings of the two groups—possibly signifying less rank promotions and/or lower starting salaries for females.
So, it would appear that there is a non-human-capital element hindering the promotion of women from the rank of associate to the rank of full
professor. Therefore, further research should attempt to uncover the reasons why such a small percentage of women rise to the rank of full professor as compared to men, and why these differences are greater in the field of business than in other fields.
There has been a vast difference found between women’s and men’s rates of obtaining promotions over a 16-year period. Specifically, with regards to women’s careers, which tended to plateau at the mid-ranks of faculty, while men’s careers tended to lead to the highest rank. The data were drawn from the National
Study of Postsecondary Faculty for 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2004 from the US Department of Education—whose own studies have indicated that these differences are not entirely due to human capital factors (e.g., level of education, experience, and percentage of time devoted to tasks).
