Does gender matter for academic promotion? Evidence from a randomized natural experiment

Given the lack of women in academia, several countries have recently adopted gender quotas in hiring and promotion committees. This paper studies whether these policies may work. The identification strategy exploits the random assignment mechanism in place between 2002 and 2006 in all academic disciplines in Spain to select the members of promotion committees. We find that a larger share of female evaluators increases the chances of success of female applicants to full professor positions, but it decreases the chances of success of female applicants to associate professor positions. The evidence is consistent with the existence of ambivalent sexism, and with some female evaluators behaving strategically.