Gender in Science and Engineering Faculties: Demographic Inertia Revisited

The under-representation of women on faculties of science and engineering is ascribed in part to demographic inertia, which is the lag between retirement of current faculty and future hires. The assumption of demographic inertia implies that, given enough time, gender parity will be achieved. We exa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-10, Vol.10 (10), p.e0139767-e0139767
Main Authors: Thomas, Nicole R, Poole, Daniel J, Herbers, Joan M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Career Choice
Career Mobility
Careers
Computer simulation
Convergence
Demographics
Engineering
Faculty - statistics & numerical data
Female
Female-male relations
Gender differences
Higher education
Humans
Inertia
Male
Markov chains
Markov processes
Models, Theoretical
Personnel Selection - statistics & numerical data
Retirement
Science
Sex Factors
Survival analysis
Tenure
Time Factors
Women
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Summary:The under-representation of women on faculties of science and engineering is ascribed in part to demographic inertia, which is the lag between retirement of current faculty and future hires. The assumption of demographic inertia implies that, given enough time, gender parity will be achieved. We examine that assumption via a semi-Markov model to predict the future faculty, with simulations that predict the convergence demographic state. Our model shows that existing practices that produce gender gaps in recruitment, retention, and career progression preclude eventual gender parity. Further, we examine sensitivity of the convergence state to current gender gaps to show that all sources of disparity across the entire faculty career must be erased to produce parity: we cannot blame demographic inertia.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0139767