Elite male faculty in the life sciences employ fewer women.

ABSTRACT: Women make up over one-half of all doctoral recipients in biology-related fields but are vastly underrepresented at the faculty level in the life sciences. To explore the current causes of women's underrepresentation in biology, we collected publicly accessible data from university directories and faculty websites about the composition of biology laboratories at leading academic institutions in the United States. We found that male faculty members tended to employ fewer female graduate students and postdoctoral researchers (postdocs) than female faculty members did. Furthermore, elite male faculty--those whose research was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, who had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, or who had won a major career award--trained significantly fewer

SUBMITTER: Sheltzer JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4104900 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature