Klarita Gërxhani, Nevena Kulic, Alessandra Rusconi and Heike Solga
This study examines gender differences in evaluations of applicants for assistant professorships in Germany and Italy in light of the dominant narrative of women’s discrimination in academic hiring. This narrative assumes that female applicants receive lower ratings than men. However, following Crandall and Eshleman’s (2003) justification-suppression model of prejudice expression, this may not be the case because prejudices against women may not be (fully) expressed in appointment processes. The two countries are interesting case studies because they have different normative gender climates and different gender equality strategies in academia. We conducted harmonized factorial survey experiments with professors of economics, political science, and social sciences. For Germany, we find an advantage for women in both perceived qualification for an assistant professorship and the likelihood of being invited to an interview. In Italy, we observe no advantage, but no disadvantage either. We also examine whether gender bias exists under conditions of ambiguity about applicants’ academic performance (co-authorship) and career commitment (parental leave). Our results indicate a co-authorship penalty and a parenthood premium in both countries, but neither differs by applicants’ gender. Overall, and in contrast to the prevalent discrimination narrative, we find no evidence of gender bias in applicant’s ratings. Moreover, our exploratory cross-country comparison suggests that, compared to the gender-neutral Italian policy approach, Germany’s proactive gender equality policies seem to be more successful in reducing the gender gap in assistant professor appointments, for example, by favoring women among equally qualified applicants.
Presented by:
Professor Klarita Gërxhani
Date & time:
20 Mar 2024 12:30 pm - 20 Mar 2024 13:30 pm
Venue:
2N2.4.16 (to join us online, please contact the seminar series organisers at iserseminars@essex.ac.uk)
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