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National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track

Overview of attention for article published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 2015
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (99th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (99th percentile)

Citations

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298 Dimensions

Readers on

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780 Mendeley
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2 CiteULike
Title
National hiring experiments reveal 2:1 faculty preference for women on STEM tenure track
Published in
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 2015
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1418878112
Pubmed ID
Authors

Wendy M. Williams, Stephen J. Ceci

Abstract

National randomized experiments and validation studies were conducted on 873 tenure-track faculty (439 male, 434 female) from biology, engineering, economics, and psychology at 371 universities/colleges from 50 US states and the District of Columbia. In the main experiment, 363 faculty members evaluated narrative summaries describing hypothetical female and male applicants for tenure-track assistant professorships who shared the same lifestyle (e.g., single without children, married with children). Applicants' profiles were systematically varied to disguise identically rated scholarship; profiles were counterbalanced by gender across faculty to enable between-faculty comparisons of hiring preferences for identically qualified women versus men. Results revealed a 2:1 preference for women by faculty of both genders across both math-intensive and non-math-intensive fields, with the single exception of male economists, who showed no gender preference. Results were replicated using weighted analyses to control for national sample characteristics. In follow-up experiments, 144 faculty evaluated competing applicants with differing lifestyles (e.g., divorced mother vs. married father), and 204 faculty compared same-gender candidates with children, but differing in whether they took 1-y-parental leaves in graduate school. Women preferred divorced mothers to married fathers; men preferred mothers who took leaves to mothers who did not. In two validation studies, 35 engineering faculty provided rankings using full curricula vitae instead of narratives, and 127 faculty rated one applicant rather than choosing from a mixed-gender group; the same preference for women was shown by faculty of both genders. These results suggest it is a propitious time for women launching careers in academic science. Messages to the contrary may discourage women from applying for STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) tenure-track assistant professorships.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 780 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 21 3%
United Kingdom 7 <1%
Germany 3 <1%
Australia 3 <1%
Canada 2 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Czechia 1 <1%
Switzerland 1 <1%
Malaysia 1 <1%
Other 4 <1%
Unknown 736 94%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 207 27%
Researcher 104 13%
Student > Master 77 10%
Student > Bachelor 68 9%
Professor 53 7%
Other 155 20%
Unknown 116 15%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 130 17%
Social Sciences 98 13%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 84 11%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 31 4%
Physics and Astronomy 30 4%
Other 254 33%
Unknown 153 20%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2117. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 26 March 2024.
All research outputs
#4,191
of 25,593,129 outputs
Outputs from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#133
of 103,400 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#25
of 279,700 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
#2
of 971 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,593,129 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 99th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 103,400 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 39.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 279,700 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 971 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 99% of its contemporaries.