I’ve been well, not forced, but strongly encouraged to join a study on women with children in academia and family leave policies. After three days of reading the literature, my assessment of my chances, costs and benefits of a faculty position are considerably worse than when I started.
The absolute worst news (in a good paper): Umbach PD. 2007. Gender equity in the academic labor market: an analysis of academic disciplines. Research in Higher Education 48(2):169-192.
According to this paper, on average, any offer I get for a faculty position is likely to be about $10K less than if I were a man. This is controlling for marital status, children, time since Ph.D., discipline, etc.
Grrrreat.
See also The nutshell where we learn:
… 4. Across the board, the only positions in which women are hired in proportion or greater than their representation in the Ph.D. pool are in the non-tenure-track, part-time/adjunct/”visiting professor” positions… and once in this so-called “mommy track” they find it next to impossible to get out. Some claim that women choose these positions because they are more amenable to family life, however the number of hours spent working in these positions is equivalent to that in tenure-track positions. These non-tenure-track positions typically also pay much less and offer few to any benefits.
5. In all disciplines, the proportion of women faculty is highest at community colleges, then liberal arts and other “bachelor’s” institutions, then regional state schools and “master’s” institutions, and lowest in large research universities (i.e., R1 institutions).
6. The greater the proportion of women (holding Ph.D.’s and in faculty positions) in a discipline, the lower the salaries. …
–Ann Bartow
