Academic Careers and the Gender Gap

Book excerpt: Women earn nearly half of all new PhDs in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. Why, then, do they occupy a disproportionate number of the junior-level university positions while men occupy 80 percent of the more prestigious jobs? In Academic Careers and the Gender Gap, Maureen Baker draws on candid interviews with male and female scholars, previous research, and her own thirty-eight-year academic career to explain the reasons behind this inequality. She argues that current university priorities and collegial relations often magnify the impact of gendered families and identities and perpetuate the gender gap. Tracing the evolution of university priorities and practices, Baker reveals significant and persistent differences in job security, working hours, rank, salary, job satisfaction, and career length between male and female scholars.