IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cer/papers/wp594.html

An Advisor Like Me? Advisor Gender and Post-graduate Careers in Science

Author

Listed:
  • Patric Gaule
  • Mario Piacentini

Abstract

We investigate whether having an advisor of the same gender is correlated with the productivity of PhD science students and their propensity to stay in academic science. Our analysis is based on an original dataset covering nearly 20,000 PhD graduates and their advisors from U.S. chemistry departments. We find that students with an advisor of the same gender tend to be more productive during the PhD and more likely to become professors themselves. We suggest that the under-representation of women in science and engineering faculty positions may perpetuate itself through the lower availability of same-gender advisors for female students.

Suggested Citation

  • Patric Gaule & Mario Piacentini, 2017. "An Advisor Like Me? Advisor Gender and Post-graduate Careers in Science," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp594, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    • Handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp594
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cerge-ei.cz/pdf/wp/Wp594.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hale, Galina & Regev, Tali, 2014. "Gender ratios at top PhD programs in economics," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 55-70.
    2. Muriel Niederle & Lise Vesterlund, 2011. "Gender and Competition," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 3(1), pages 601-630, September.
    3. Jennifer Hunt, 2016. "Why do Women Leave Science and Engineering?," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 69(1), pages 199-226, January.
    4. Shulamit Kahn & Megan J. MacGarvie, 2016. "How Important Is U.S. Location for Research in Science?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 397-414, May.
    5. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    6. Fabian Waldinger, 2010. "Quality Matters - the Expulsion of Professors and Ph.D. Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany," CEP Discussion Papers dp0985, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    7. Frietsch, Rainer & Haller, Inna & Funken-Vrohlings, Melanie & Grupp, Hariolf, 2009. "Gender-specific patterns in patenting and publishing," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 590-599, May.
    8. Ann E. Austin, 2002. "Preparing the Next Generation of Faculty," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 73(1), pages 94-122, January.
    9. David Neumark & Rosella Gardecki, 1998. "Women Helping Women? Role Model and Mentoring Effects on Female Ph.D. Students in Economics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(1), pages 220-246.
    10. Thomas Buser & Muriel Niederle & Hessel Oosterbeek, 2014. "Gender, Competitiveness, and Career Choices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 129(3), pages 1409-1447.
    11. Francine D. Blau & Janet M. Currie & Rachel T. A. Croson & Donna K. Ginther, 2010. "Can Mentoring Help Female Assistant Professors? Interim Results from a Randomized Trial," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 348-352, May.
    12. Fabian Waldinger, 2010. "Quality Matters: The Expulsion of Professors and the Consequences for PhD Student Outcomes in Nazi Germany," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(4), pages 787-831, August.
    13. Margaret W. Sallee, 2011. "Performing Masculinity: Considering Gender in Doctoral Student Socialization," The Journal of Higher Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 82(2), pages 187-216, March.
    14. Christiana Hilmer & Michael Hilmer, 2007. "Women Helping Women, Men Helping Women? Same-Gender Mentoring, Initial Job Placements, and Early Career Publishing Success for Economics PhDs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(2), pages 422-426, May.
    15. Eric P. Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long, 2005. "Do Faculty Serve as Role Models? The Impact of Instructor Gender on Female Students," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 152-157, May.
    16. Preston, Anne E, 1994. "Why Have All the Women Gone? A Study of Exit of Women from the Science and Engineering Professions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1446-1462, December.
    17. Acemoglu, Daron, 1995. "Reward structures and the allocation of talent," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 17-33, January.
    18. Patrick Gaulé & Mario Piacentini, 2013. "Chinese Graduate Students and U.S. Scientific Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(2), pages 698-701, May.
    19. Carol V. Robinson, 2011. "In pursuit of female chemists," Nature, Nature, vol. 476(7360), pages 273-275, August.
    20. Michele Pezzoni & Jacques Mairesse & Paula Stephan & Julia Lane, 2016. "Gender and the Publication Output of Graduate Students: A Case Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, January.
    21. Chang‐Tai Hsieh & Erik Hurst & Charles I. Jones & Peter J. Klenow, 2019. "The Allocation of Talent and U.S. Economic Growth," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(5), pages 1439-1474, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rossello, Giulia & Cowan, Robin & Mairesse, Jacques, 2020. "Ph.D. research output in STEM: the role of gender and race in supervision," MERIT Working Papers 2020-021, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    2. Corsini, Alberto & Pezzoni, Michele & Visentin, Fabiana, 2022. "What makes a productive Ph.D. student?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    3. Hani Mansour & Daniel I. Rees & Bryson M. Rintala & Nathan N. Wozny, 2022. "The Effects of Professor Gender on the Postgraduation Outcomes of Female Students," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(3), pages 693-715, May.
    4. Valerie K. Bostwick & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2022. "Nevertheless She Persisted? Gender Peer Effects in Doctoral STEM Programs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 397-436.
    5. Estela Hernández-Martín & Fernando Calle & Juan C. Dueñas & Miguel Holgado & Asunción Gómez-Pérez, 2019. "Participation of women in doctorate, research, innovation, and management activities at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid: analysis of the decade 2006–2016," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1059-1089, September.
    6. Joyce J. Chen & Daniel Crown, 2019. "The Gender Pay Gap in Academia: Evidence from the Ohio State University," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 101(5), pages 1337-1352, October.
    7. Sofia Patsali & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2021. "The Impact of Research Independence on PhD Students’ Careers: Large-Scale Evidence from France," Post-Print hal-03564708, HAL.
    8. Andrew Hussey & Sheena Murray & Wendy Stock, 2022. "Gender, coauthorship, and academic outcomes in economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(2), pages 465-484, April.
    9. Mouganie, Pierre & Canaan, Serena, 2019. "Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap," MPRA Paper 94196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Takao Kato & Yang Song, 2022. "Advising, gender, and performance: Evidence from a university with exogenous adviser–student gender match," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 121-141, January.
    11. Ina Ganguli & Patrick Gaule & Danijela Vuletic Cugalj, 2020. "Biased Beliefs and Entry into Scientific Careers," Upjohn Working Papers 20-334, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaule, Patrick & Piacentini, Mario, 2018. "An advisor like me? Advisor gender and post-graduate careers in science," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 805-813.
    2. Mouganie, Pierre & Canaan, Serena, 2019. "Female science advisors and the STEM gender gap," MPRA Paper 94196, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Joyce B. Main, 2018. "Kanter’s Theory of Proportions: Organizational Demography and PhD Completion in Science and Engineering Departments," Research in Higher Education, Springer;Association for Institutional Research, vol. 59(8), pages 1059-1073, December.
    4. Muscio, Alessandro & Vallanti, Giovanna, 2024. "The gender gap in PhD entrepreneurship: Why balancing employment in academia really matters," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(1).
    5. Corsini, Alberto & Pezzoni, Michele & Visentin, Fabiana, 2022. "What makes a productive Ph.D. student?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(10).
    6. Carter, Susan Payne & Dudley, Whitney & Lyle, David S. & Smith, John Z., 2019. "Who's the Boss? The effect of strong leadership on employee turnover," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 323-343.
    7. Owen, Stephanie, 2023. "College major choice and beliefs about relative performance: An experimental intervention to understand gender gaps in STEM," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    8. Sofia Patsali & Michele Pezzoni & Fabiana Visentin, 2021. "The Impact of Research Independence on PhD Students’ Careers: Large-Scale Evidence from France," Post-Print hal-03564708, HAL.
    9. Valerie K. Bostwick & Bruce A. Weinberg, 2022. "Nevertheless She Persisted? Gender Peer Effects in Doctoral STEM Programs," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 397-436.
    10. Schier, Uta K., 2020. "Female and male role models and competitiveness," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 55-67.
    11. John V. Winters, 2017. "Do Native STEM Graduates Increase Innovation? Evidence from U.S. Metropolitan Areas," Economics Working Paper Series 1714, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business.
    12. Brandts, Jordi & Rott, Christina, 2021. "Advice from women and men and selection into competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    13. Ruchir Agarwal & Patrick Gaule, 2020. "Invisible Geniuses: Could the Knowledge Frontier Advance Faster?," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 409-424, December.
    14. Lena E. Hensvik, 2014. "Manager Impartiality: Worker-Firm Matching and the Gender Wage Gap," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(2), pages 395-421, April.
    15. Goulas, Sofoklis & Gunawardena, Bhagya N. & Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Zenou, Yves, 2024. "Gender Role Models in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 17271, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Takao Kato & Yang Song, 2022. "Advising, gender, and performance: Evidence from a university with exogenous adviser–student gender match," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 121-141, January.
    17. Meijun Liu & Sijie Yang & Yi Bu & Ning Zhang, 2023. "Female early-career scientists have conducted less interdisciplinary research in the past six decades: evidence from doctoral theses," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-16, December.
    18. Hani Mansour & Daniel I. Rees & Bryson M. Rintala & Nathan N. Wozny, 2022. "The Effects of Professor Gender on the Postgraduation Outcomes of Female Students," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(3), pages 693-715, May.
    19. Elaine Kelly & Isabel Stockton, 2024. "A senior doctor like me: Gender match and occupational choice," IFS Working Papers W24/11, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Kerstin Grosch & Simone Haeckl & Martin G. Kocher, 2022. "Closing the Gender STEM Gap - A Large-Scale Randomized-Controlled Trial in Elementary Schools," CESifo Working Paper Series 9907, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cer:papers:wp594. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Lucie Vasiljevova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eiacacz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.