Men and women academics: An Anglo-American comparison of subject choices and research activity

Abstract

In both the U.S. and the U.K. women academics are concentrated in certain subject fields. There is considerable similarity between the two countries in this respect: women are found in relatively large numbers in the humanities and are virtually absent from the applied sciences, but in both countries they are a small minority in all five major subject areas. In the U.S.A. the degree of polarisation between the men and women is greater than in the U.K. This is also true with respect to the teaching and research activities of men and women: in both countries women tend to publish fewer articles than men, but in the U.S. the difference is greater. The degree to which this is true varies according to subject fields; it is most marked in the humanities and least marked in the social sciences and applied sciences. There is one unexpected difference between the two countries: whereas in America women teach more than men, in Britain they teach less except in the social sciences. The causes of the different behaviour and interests of men and women academics are likely to be a function both of cultural definitions of male and female roles in the wider society, and institutional factors associated with educational systems both prior to the university stage and at that stage.