Are women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers finally on equal footing with men? A comprehensive new study spearheaded by researchers Stephen J. Ceci from Cornell University, Shulamit Kahn from Boston University, and Wendy M. Williams, also from Cornell University, provides a pivotal update on the state of gender bias within academia’s tenure-track positions.
This research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, provides evidence that the academic landscape is showing significant strides towards equality, with women now as likely as men to secure grant funding, publish research, and receive strong letters of recommendation. However, the study also uncovers areas where disparities remain, specifically in teaching evaluations and salary, highlighting the nuanced nature of progress in STEM fields.
Unveiling the Motivation Behind the Study
This extensive research was born out of a necessity to provide a balanced and evidence-based view on gender bias in academia, amidst a backdrop of often conflicting and ideologically charged discourse.
By employing an adversarial collaboration approach, the researchers engaged in a rigorous years-long process of challenging each other’s assumptions and interpretations. This method ensured a comprehensive examination of existing literature across multiple disciplines, focusing on six key areas critical to academic career advancement.
“Williams and I published a number of analyses showing no hiring bias against women in the tenure-track academy and in fact usually pro-female hiring advantage,” explained Ceci, the H. L. Carr Chaired Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and past president of the Society for Experimental Psychology & Cognitive Science.
“We based this claim on both experimental (matched-CV) studies as well as on national cohort analyses. In contrast, Shu Kahn has published a number of analyses with the opposite finding. So we agreed to work as an ‘adversarial collaboration’ to try to resolve our disagreements.”
“It took us almost 5 years of hard work and constant back-and-forth but we finally did manage to resolve our differences. This is a big achievement, if I may so, because until our adversarial collaboration there were two sides and the twain never met.”
Key Findings: A Shift Towards Gender Equality
The researchers’ synthesis of data from 2000 to 2020 across hundreds of studies painted a picture of significant progress toward gender equality in STEM academia. Contrary to widespread beliefs, their findings indicate that:
- Women and men have equal chances of being awarded grant funding, the authors found from a meta-analysis of 39 studies including data from more than 2 million applications to 27 grant agencies.
- There is no gender bias in the acceptance of journal articles for publication, according to the authors’ meta-analysis of 33 studies.
- Women receive equally strong, if not stronger, letters of recommendation, according to the findings of nine studies that analyzed letters written from 1990 to 2017 for the fields of psychology, physics, biology, medicine, chemistry, and geoscience.
- Women are more likely than men to be hired for tenure-track positions, the authors found through a review of existing studies and their own analysis of data from the National Science Foundation.
This evidence suggests a marked departure from past conditions, where gender bias was more evident.
“A common claim is that gender bias in the academy is rampant: it can be seen in domains such as hiring (where a male’s name on a CV generates more job offers than a female’s name on the same CV), promotion, remuneration (the gender-salary gap), letters of recommendation (allegedly stronger letters written for men), grant funding and journal acceptance rates disadvantage women,” Ceci told PsyPost.
“Yet, after extensive analyses we found that very few of the above beliefs are supported by the totality of evidence. While there are studies documenting gender bias in each of the above domains, the full body of evidence often supports gender neutrality or some domains bias in favor of women.”
“Readers unfamiliar with the totality of evidence may base their beliefs of widespread gender bias on their awareness of a few highly salient studies that document bias against women, which either fail to withstand replication or are offset by larger, more powerful studies that report no gender bias or even significant bias in favor of women.”
“Readers should take away the importance of considering all of the evidence, not just cherry-picked studies that are consistent with one’s favored position.”
Persisting Biases: Teaching Ratings and Salary
However,he study found evidence of gender bias in teaching evaluations, with female instructors often unfairly judged compared to their male counterparts. Women academics tended to receive lower teaching evaluations from students despite being equally effective educators.
“There were many things that surprised us,” Ceci said. “For example, we went into our adversarial collaboration disagreeing about tenure-track hiring but we had no predictions about gender gaps in teaching evaluations, for example.”
“This is easiest to see in Rate-My-Professor tags where nearly all negative terms (e.g., disorganized) are used to describe female instructors more than males and the opposite is true of positive terms.”
Salary analysis revealed a less than 4% unexplained gender salary gap for similar scientists, which, while significantly smaller than previously claimed, indicates room for improvement in achieving full salary equality.
“We went into our study aware of the most common estimate which is that female professors earn only 80 cents on every dollar men earn,” Ceci told PsyPost. “We found this was an overestimate due to failure to control for important variables such as seniority, field of research, productivity, etc. When all variables were controlled we found women were still underpaid vis-a-vis comparable men but the gap went from 20% to only 3.6%. That surprised us.”
The study provides valuable insights into gender bias in academia, particularly in STEM fields. However, like all research, it has its limitations, which are crucial to consider when interpreting the findings and implications.
Caveats to Consider
The study’s scope is focused specifically on tenure-track positions within academia, which means its findings may not be fully representative of the broader landscape of STEM professions, including non-tenure-track roles, industry positions, and government jobs. This focus excludes a significant portion of the workforce where gender bias could manifest differently.
In addition, the analysis primarily addresses biases evident from 2000 to 2020, thereby excluding historical data that could provide a deeper context for understanding the evolution of gender bias over time.
“No single study — no matter how long it took to complete or how counter-balanced its authors were — is ever perfect,” Ceci said. “Science proceeds in a self-correcting manner and I have no doubt that in the future some of our findings may become obsolete.”
“For the time being, Williams and I have moved on from this area of research. Whether we will return to it is unknown. We spent five years struggling with this and we feel we deserve respite.”
The study, “Exploring Gender Bias in Six Key Domains of Academic Science: An Adversarial Collaboration,” was published in the July 2023 issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest.