Women make up a growing proportion of academia, but as in so many other walks of life, their path up the career ladder is a slippery one indeed.  New research from McGill University highlights how while women make up around two-thirds of doctorates in archaeology, they make up just one-third of tenure-stream faculty.

“A ‘chilly climate’ exists for women in academia. Subtle practices that stereotype, exclude, and devalue women, as well as inhospitable working environments, particularly for primary caregivers, are just some of the factors that could be contributing to attrition rates,” the researchers say.

Brain drain

The research highlights the high number of women who are exiting academia, despite the significant amount of time and money invested in their doctoral training.  The paper reveals that 64% of PhD degrees go to women in archaeology in Canada, but just 46% of assistant professors are women.

“We might think that 46 percent sounds good – it’s near 50 percent after all, but our expectations for gender ratios shouldn’t be 50/50. They should reflect the proportions in candidate pools,” the researchers explain.

The researchers explain that fewer jobs are available at the moment, due in part to the end of mandatory retirement.  Despite this, they feel it doesn’t completely explain the difficulty women have in filling professor roles.

This is compounded by the finding that most of the men hired in Canada were trained in Canada, whereas most of the women hired were trained overseas.  Just 12% of the women who achieved their PhDs in archaeology from a Canadian school between 2003 and 2017 entered faculty.

Unequal opportunities

The research follows previous work from UNC Charlotte, which explored the diversity found in leadership roles across academia, and found that despite the grade point averages (GPAs) of men and women, men were far more likely to manage people than women were, with this gap particularly pronounced when people became parents.

Indeed, for those with a GPA of 4.0, fathers were four times as likely to manage than mothers.  What’s more, the link between a high GPA and managerial status is present for men far more than it is for women, for whom a high academic pedigree seems to make little noticeable difference.  Sadly, it seems that fathers with low academic achievements were more likely to be leaders than women with high academic achievements.

“Our research clearly illustrates the barriers that exist for women, especially mothers, in the workplace,” the researchers explain. “At the same time, given that even men with low grades go on to attain higher leadership roles than women, this study highlights perhaps the lack of barriers that men face in securing greater leadership opportunities.”