| | | Do babies mattter? |
Authors Marc Goulden (speaker), Mary Ann Mason, Nick Wolfinger 1
In the last four decades, women have made impressive strides in achieving equity in the academy. In 1966 (NCES), women comprised just 43% of baccalaureate degree recipients; 34% of MasterŐs degree recipients; and a mere 12% of doctoral degree recipients (among U.S. citizens). Most recently, women comprised a remarkable 57% of all baccalaureate degree recipients (2001), 59% of masterŐs degree recipients (2001); and 51% of doctoral degree recipients (U.S. citizens only, 2002). Feminists of earlier generations deserve a great deal of credit for ushering in this age of greater access for women. In contrast to this clear pattern of increasing feminization among U.S. degree recipients, the degree to which the professoriate has feminized is less impressive. Women are now well represented among non-tenure track faculty (perhaps a dubious mark of glory) at 49%, and are fairly well represented among pre-tenure faculty, at 45% of assistant professors on the tenure track. But women remain a mere 26% of tenured faculty in the United States (NCES 1999).
The realization that women PhDs might be hitting some sort of barrier in their pursuit of tenure or may be leaking out the pipeline at disproportionately higher rates than men led us to the formation of our current research effort, referred to as the "Do Babies Matter?"project (Mason and Goulden 2002).
| | | Do babies mattter? |