Abstract
Recent decades have seen a sharp increase in the number of female PhD graduates in the Netherlands. Currently, the share of females among newly graduated PhDs is almost on par with that of males. A considerable body of scientific studies has investigated the role of gender in the academic workplace. However, the role of gender in the careers of all PhD graduates, including those outside academia, has been studied less. In this study, we investigate gender differences in type of job, occupation, career perception and research performance of recent PhDs. The study is based on a survey of persons who obtained a PhD from one of five Dutch universities between 2008 and early 2012. We show that gender differences in post-PhD careers are non-existent in some aspects studied, but there are small differences in other aspects, such as sector of employment, type of contract, involvement in teaching and management, and career perception. In contrast, male and female PhDs differ sharply on two factors. The first is field of PhD, females being heavily underrepresented in engineering and the natural sciences. The second is part-time employment, females being much more likely to work part-time than males, especially if they work in the Netherlands. In later career stages, the combination of the small and large differences can be presumed to affect the career progression of female PhDs through cumulative disadvantage.
Highlights
The pool of highly educated women is larger than ever
Female PhDs were more likely than their male counterparts to work in academia (64% of females vs. 56% of males), whereas males were more likely to work in non-academic research (34% of males vs. 22% of females; p < 0.001 in Pearson’s χ2 test of independence)
This decreased the gender differences slightly, but women were still more likely to work in academia and men more likely to work in non-academic research
Summary
The pool of highly educated women (with a master’s or doctoral degree) is larger than ever. For the underrepresentation of women in top academic positions, many other explanations have been proposed, including but not limited to gender differences in career interest, differences in performance and (implicit) gender bias in hiring, promotion and research funding decisions. There is quite some literature on gender differences among academic researchers, but less is known about gender differences in the post-PhD careers of all PhDs. There is some evidence on the subject: in the Netherlands, females are less likely to work as a researcher than males, are less likely to work in the business enterprise sector, but more likely to work in the private non-profit sector [31].
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