Gender differences in early career transitions in the academic life sciences

Abstract

We examine the extent to which and why early career transitions lead to women being underrepresented among faculty in the life sciences. We follow the careers of 8,667 male and female scientists from the post-doctoral fellowship and early assistant professor stages to becoming a principal investigator (PI) – a critical transition point in the academic life sciences. We apply time-to-event analysis using a unique dataset that connects individuals' National Institutes of Health funding histories to their publication records. We find that the transition to PI could account for a substantial share of the gender gap in the life sciences, with women experiencing up to 31% lower transition rates than men. Differences in publication records can only explain about a third of this lower transition rate. Gender differences in the returns to publication records explained more of the gender gap in transition rates. In addition, mentoring appeared of particular importance to women in their ability to transition to PI.