Academic Career Advances and Gender Gap

Abstract

Is there a gender gap barrier against the career advancement of women researchers in Mexico? To explore possible answers to this question, we review the specialized literature, based on the “sticky floor” and “glass ceiling” conceptual framework, and then offer an empirical approach to test whether such a gap exists as well as some theoretical reasons that could explain it. We analyzed a massive dataset of 41,000 members of the National System of Researchers (SNI) under the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT) in Mexico from 1991 to 2017. To test determinants of advancement, we consider gender, areas of knowledge, states in which researchers reside, years in which initial applications and promotions took place, and universities to which researchers belong to. We found that there is a similar chance to advance from the lower levels of the system, following the sticky floor analogy, but women make a little progress after these initial levels when compared to men, in line with the glass ceiling idea. We also offer additional research avenues in this topic, due to another important finding, which reveals that 62% of researchers never make progress at the level in which they initially join.