Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

This paper examines how individual level factors such as research productivity and family caregiving obligations and signaling as strategic behaviors, together, affect time to tenure for female academic scientists. It takes longer for female academic scientists to attain tenure. Longer time to tenure further disadvantages female academic scientists because it is associated with several important negative implications such as lower job security, lower salary (Long, Allison, & McGinnis, 1993; National Research Council, 2010), and lower work satisfaction (Lawrence, Celis, & Ott, 2014). Given that tenure decisions are meant to be merit-based, research has explained tenure delay for female as a function of lower productivity associated with caregiving responsibilities. However, recent findings indicate that female are not less productive than men. Thus, recent research has attempted to explain the mismatch between the gender-neutral productivity and female’s longer time to tenure by sexism and subtle bias in the review of female candidates.

Given that the subtle sexism and discrimination delay female academic scientists’ time to tenure, this paper underscores that they employ strategic behaviors to counter the discrimination. Signal theory that conceptualizes individuals’ verbal and nonverbal signaling and the effects of the signaling on the outcomes of decision-making serves as a theoretical framework for this research (Spence, 1973). Using the signal theory as a theoretical lens, we establish model and hypotheses for predicting (1) gender differences in time to attain tenure and (2) the extent of effects of female faculty employ strategies (i.e. signaling) to mitigate the effects of unfairness and bias in the academic science. For the analysis, we take advantage of the data collected from a national survey, funded by the National Science Foundation, completed in 2011 by tenured and tenure-track academic faculty in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields from higher education institutions in the United States. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to discover the factors and the extent of the effects on time to tenure among STEM faculty. Findings suggest that faculty members’ signaling to put their career ahead of family commitments improves research productivity, which results in shorter time to tenure. Second, we find gender differences in signaling. Female faculty are more likely than men to signal of putting career ahead of family commitments. The findings shed new light on the current discussions of gender differences in time to attain tenure and present confirmatory and explanatory evidence for university administrators. Findings will provide insights about how female academic scientists signal to counter biases in male-dominant organizations and how their signaling affects career developments. The insights contribute to both theoretical understanding about traditionally disadvantaged group’s bias avoidance signaling in organizations and provide managerial ideas and information for organizations about the groups.