In this post we explore the career path trajectories of male and female faculty at the University of Iowa. The first chart above shows the percentage of male and female faculty in the Professor ranks of each College. The data reveals that this most senior rank is overwhelmingly dominated by male faculty in every college except, unsurprisingly, the College of Nursing (59% female, 41% male). The College of Engineering (6% female, 94% male), Medicine (16% female, 84% male), and Pharmacy (10% female, 90% male) have particularly stark disparities in the number of male and female faculty at the Professor rank. In the College of Education (23% female, 77% male) and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (28% female, 72% male), too, we see large differences between the number of female full professors and male full professors.
The second chart shows the median number of years it takes for female faculty and male faculty to achieve the rank of Professor in each of the Colleges. In every College except the College of Public Health, it takes female faculty significantly longer to achieve the rank of full professor than it takes male faculty: on average, 6 years longer in the College of Pharmacy, 3 years longer in the College of Education, and 1 year longer in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. In the College of Nursing, in which male senior faculty do not outnumber female senior faculty, the median length of time it takes female faculty to rise to the rank of Professor is 3 years longer than the median length of time it takes male faculty. For faculty in all of the Colleges combined, median time to Professor is 2 years longer for female faculty than it is for male faculty.
The third chart compares the percentage of male and female faculty who make up the group of faculty hired at the Professor rank in each College. We limited our survey to those who have been hired over the last ten years (2007-2016) in order to get the most up-to-the-minute picture of senior hiring at the University of Iowa. The chart shows that significantly more male faculty than female faculty have been hired at the highest rank in most of the Colleges.
In the College of Business, over the past ten years, an equal number of male and female senior hires have been made; in the College of Nursing, all those hired at the senior rank have been female; in the College of Dentistry a greater percentage of those faculty hired at the senior rank have been female (60%) than male (40%).
In the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, however, the group of faculty hired at the senior rank has been composed of 78% male faculty and 22% female faculty. In the College of Engineering, 100% of the faculty hired at the senior rank have been male. In the College of Public Health, 67% of the faculty hired at the senior rank have been male and 33% have been female. In all of the Colleges combined, the group of faculty hired at the senior rank over the last ten years is composed of 75% male faculty and 25% female faculty.
These are dismaying charts. The loss of income and status that female faculty suffer as a result of taking longer to make it to the highest rank has a cumulative impact as salary increases are often based on percentages of previous salaries, and some faculty honors are bestowed only on full professors.