For the past 40 years, the share of female university students as well as doctoral students has increased dramatically in most parts of the world. However, the transformation towards gender equality in academia is not nearly as apparent when it comes to the share of women among tenured lecturers and full professors. The share of women drops about ten percentage points at each promotional stage after graduate studies, so that ultimately the share of women who are full professors is down to approximately one-third (McFarland et al., 2017; Renwick Monroe et al., 2014). Thus, it is unsurprising that the road towards greater gender equality in tenure rates has been described as ‘excruciatingly slow’ (Larrán George et al. 2016; see also Tessens et al., 2011; Marschke et al., 2007), and others maintain that the gender gap in tenure rates is actually not closing at all (e.g. Perna, 2005).
Arguably, this situation is intimately associated with the gendered division of labour in academia, which several studies have observed. This division of labour inevitably hampers women’s career opportunities since there is an undeniable and sharp difference in how men and women experience academia. These differences are well characterised in The Washington Post’s “Monkey Cage´s” symposium on the gender gap in academia (Voeten, 2013). To name but a few such differences that have been reported in the literature: women teach and perform lesser-ranked administrative services to a larger extent than men, while men conduct more research (see e.g. Kalm, 2019; Guardino & Borden, 2017; Coate & Kandiko Howson, 2016; Nature, 2016; European Commission, 2008). Furthermore, a gender gap in citations has been observedFootnote 1 (Dion et al. 2018); a gender bias is present in research grant peer review (Tamblyn et al., 2018); male academics are more likely than women to be accepted to peer-reviewedFootnote 2 conferences (Times Higher Education, 2019); and gender plays a significant role in influencing how students rate their instructors – to the disadvantage of women (MacNell et al., 2015). Furthermore, even when women are just as scientifically competent as men, there is still a significant gender gap in career advancement that is not explained by gender differences in productivity (Filandra & Pasqua, 2019; see also Wullum Nielsen, 2016, however compare Madison & Fahlman, 2020; Kulp, 2020), and women are more likely to be steered into part-time positions, making it less likely for them to transfer to full-time positions (Lundby & Warme, 1990).
In addition, studies have shown that male academics are more satisfied with their salary, their promotions, and experience greater job satisfaction compared to their female colleagues (Okbara et al., 2005). Finally, female academics experience higher overall levels of job-related stress (Doyle & Hind, 2002). Taken together, these gender differences make it reasonable to expect that they negatively affect the career opportunities of female scholars. For instance, even after controlling for productivity, women are less likely than men to be promoted to full professors (August & Waltman, 2004; Perna, 2001), and furthermore, salaries for women are generally lower compared to those of men with similar academic track-records (Barbezat & Hughes, 2005; Carr et al., 2015).
It is fair to say, then, that gender differences in academia regarding division of labour, availability of career opportunities and salaries are both real and significant. In this article, we set out to perform an explorative study on the effect of these differences in terms of who is recruited to tenured positions and based on what merits. The aim is to analyse whether the gender differences of division of labour, described above, are reproduced in universities’ hiring processes, amounting to what we dub a potential ‘double discrimination’ in academia.
This will be studied in a Swedish context. Some previous qualitative studies of the Swedish case indicate that there is indeed a gendered division of labour in Swedish academia – to the disadvantage of women (Angervall & Beach, 2017, 2018; Angervall et al., 2015). A review from the Swedish National Board of Higher Education, which was based on 22 different projects, concluded that the meritocratic ambitions of higher education institutions in Sweden is hampered ‘by norms and values that confirm men as superior and that different conditions are active regarding women’s and men’s meriting and carrier development.’ Such norms and values are fostered by informal power configurations and procedures, making it hard for those who do not have access to informal networks to compete on equal terms (UHR, 2020: 29f, our translation). We can also tell from large-n studies that variations along gender lines still exist to a rather high degree in Sweden, in terms of recruitment to higher education, recruitment to prestigious programs and new demarcations between men and women who make it to higher education (Berggren, 2008, 2011, on the latter point see also Haley, 2018).
All of this notwithstanding, Sweden is still consistently ranked among the most gender equal countries (e.g. Equal Measures, 2019; The Global Gender Gap Report 2018; cf. Madison & Fahlman, 2020). Against this backdrop we can draw the conclusion that Sweden is apparently not a gender equal utopia, but nevertheless a country that has taken important steps, and more steps compared to many other countries, towards gender equality. Despite the remaining challenges related to gender equality we therefore view Sweden as a ‘more likely’ case when it comes to finding gender equality for academics, at least compared to most other countries.
Much previous research on equality in academia has been carried out in somewhat less gender-equal, Anglo-Saxon contexts. A crucial question is, therefore, whether gendered differences can be observed when we turn our eyes to the Swedish setting, where gender equality – according to several international comparisons – is regarded to have progressed the most. Consequently, viewing Sweden as a relatively more likely setting to observe gender equality, we argue that if reproduction of gender differences is observed in Swedish academic hiring processes, it is plausible to conclude that similar differences persist, and are presumably magnified, in other settings.
Research Questions
We argue that our explorative study – which asks whether the gender differences of division of labour are reproduced in hiring processes – has the potential to further the knowledge on gender divisions in higher education in general, and within the field of recruitment to tenured positions in particular. In order to study these gender differences of division of labour, and whether these differences have the potential to be reproduced, we analyse hiring processes to tenured positions as senior lecturers that took place in Sweden between 2003 and 2013 within Economics, Political science and Sociology. Our data was collected from peer-review evaluation reports (sakkunnigutlåtanden, in Swedish) which include rankings of the applicants as well as reviewers’ arguments for their ranking decisions. We describe this unique data-set in more detail below, but it should be stressed that the data gives us opportunities to study the division between women and men in terms of a) how they are ranked by their peers in the evaluation reports, and b) the specific merits – e.g. teaching vs. research – ascribed to women and men respectively. To fulfil the paper’s aim, we ask the following research questions:
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To what extent are women and men ascribed different types of merits in the evaluation process? Are these differences consistent across disciplines?
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How often are different types of merits the determinant factor in the recruitment process? Are there differences between disciplines in this respect?
The paper proceeds as follows. First, we spell out the theoretical points of departure where we present our assumptions of why gender divisions in academic recruitment processes are to be expected. Second, we present our methodological considerations and discuss case selection and the specifics of the Swedish higher education system, before moving on to present the data and how it is analysed. Third, we proceed to present our results and interpret these, before ending the paper with a concluding discussion.
A Double Discriminatory Effect? Assumptions and Hypotheses
As concluded by the European Commission (2008), there still exists an often-held gender stereotype that views female academics, first and foremost, as ‘talented teachers’, exhibiting excellent soft skills such as communication and a sensitive approach to, and open ear for, students. On the other hand, men in academia tend to be viewed as analytical, objective, hard thinking researchers. As stated in the EC-report, these images are mirrored in a division of labour where female academics are typically stuck with teaching duties and administrative tasks with lower status, whilst men are doing research, echoing the stereotype ‘women teach, men think’.
As already indicated, the descriptions in the EC-report have been confirmed in previous as well as later studies. A number of studies have shown that women and men employed in academia experience and react to their work environments differently – largely in ways unfavorable to women. Research indicates that female academics are paid less than men (Carr et al., 2015; Toutkoushian & Conley, 2005). Moreover, it has been found that female academics do more housework at home than their male counterparts (Scheibinger & Gilmartin, 2010), and they find it much harder to achieve a work-life balance (O’Laughlin & Bischoff, 2005). Moreover, female academics spend more time on teaching and on public-engagement tasks, and less time on research, than their male counterparts, this according to a survey of UK university staff in science-based subjects (Nature, 2017; see also Sax et al., 2002). Partly as a consequence of this, somewhat older studies found that female faculty are less likely to be promoted to the rank of full professors – even after controlling for productivity and human capital (Perna, 2001; Toutkoushian, 1999, cf. Filandra & Pasqua, 2019), although it is unclear whether this imbalance has been redressed in recent years (Guarino & Borden, 2017). However, a ‘smoking gun’ that indicates that there still is some way to go even in such a gender-equal country as Sweden, is that women constitute only 28 per cent of the country’s full professors (Allbright, 2019). Against this backdrop, if previous findings from the general international literature on gender and academic careers are valid for the Swedish context too, four hypotheses are specified and will be tested in this article:
H1: Female applicants to tenured positions as senior lecturers have stronger teaching merits, than male applicants.
H2: Male applicants have stronger research merits, than female applicants.
H3: Candidates with stronger research merits are prioritized, before candidates with stronger teaching merits.
H4: It follows from H1-H3 that male applicants are ranked higher than female applicants in peer-review evaluations that precede the hiring of senior lecturers.
In our analysis, three academic disciplines are included (Economics, Political Science, and Sociology). This is done to facilitate an analysis of a high number of hiring processes within a limited scope of time. The three disciplines are related, all being close to the core of social sciences. However, each discipline can reasonably be expected to have developed their own separate norms and routines, which may affect how merits and hiring processes are viewed. This means that although the differences between academic disciplines are not at the center of our analyses, our design still provides us with the opportunity to explore potential variation between disciplines.
This endeavor is motivated by results from previous research on ‘academic tribalism’ (Becher, 1989, 1994; Neumann, 2001). According to this literature, we could expect Economics to be closer to the ideal type of what Biglan (1973) labelled ‘hard pure’ (the ideal of natural sciences) while Sociology comes closer to ‘soft pure’ (the ideal of social sciences), with Political Science somewhere in-between. In ‘hard pure’ disciplines we are, according to Becher, expected to find a culture that is described as ‘competitive, gregarious; politically well-organised; high publication rate; task-oriented’, while the ‘soft pure’ culture is described with characteristics such as ‘individualistic, pluralistic; loosely structured; low publication rate; person-oriented’ (Becher, 1994). From this follows, we argue, an expectation of a stronger focus within Economics on output that can be more easily measured (i.e. research publications), while Sociology and to some extent Political Science can be expected to have stronger focus on portfolios with a better balance between teaching and research. This also reveals a non-universal understanding of academic meritocracy where the understanding of meritocracy varies between contexts. One form of meritocracy can be expected to discriminate against women, while another form may not be expected to do so. Hence, if the ‘academic tribalism’ argument has any merit, the disadvantage of women is expected to be most pronounced in Economics and least so in Sociology.
These differences are supported by research on how we define research activities. As some have argued, even the conceptions of research differ between men and women, and a narrower conception work in the favor of men (Healey & Davis, 2019). A narrower understanding of research comes close to the ‘hard pure’ type above. What we have referred to as ‘soft pure’ can instead, tentatively, be expected to be stronger both within certain disciplines and among women. Although our aim here is straightforward and empirical, these observations still motivate us to reflect also on social relationships between and within different genders, disciplines and research environments.
In sum, based on the empirical studies discussed above, women are expected to be discriminated against twice. Since they, as a rule, are stereotyped as talented teachers and administrators, they are allocated relatively less time and other resources to do research. Then, when they apply for tenured positions, they are expected to be discriminated against again, since their talents in the pedagogical and administrative fields are valued less, compared with research merits. This is precisely the potential double discriminatory effect we aim to explore.