STRUCTURAL DETERMINANTS OF GENDER COMPOSITION OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY
Abstract
This research addresses the traditionally male-dominated occupation of university or college professor. Sex discrepancies have been documented in employment status, rank and salary in academe. Many factors have been suggested as possible explanations for the relatively low percentage of women faculty members and their differing rewards in comparison with men. But, a single approach dominates the existing research. This method documents the differentials in employment status, rank or salary of individuals grouped by gender and attempts to attribute the differentials to individual variations in certain relevant characteristics, such as work aspirations, educational level, productivity, etc. In contrast to this traditional approach, this research focuses on the organizational and structural characteristics of the employing organization and its environment as causes of sex discrepancies in employment in higher education. An institutional discrimination theoretical framework is applied to the problem of gender composition of university faculty. Structural characteristics of the university's external environment, internal environment and female-related policies, programs and services are conceptualized as examples of institutionalized discrimination. The models are tested on a sample of 116 large research universities and 440 smaller universities and four-year colleges with quite different results. It appears that the structural model is better able to explain variation in gender composition of faculty for the smaller universities and four-year colleges than for the large research universities. For the large research universities, the best determinants of the proportion of faculty who are female are student body enrollment, the prestige of the university and the proportion of academic deans who are female. For the smaller universities and four-year colleges, the best determinants of the proportion of female faculty are size of surrounding urban area, the proportion of deans who are female, the school's prestige and whether the school is a coeducational institution or a Women's College.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Sociology
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