The research questions
The WIRED project aims at analyzing gender inequalities in academic career progression with a specific focus on early-career phases, which remain under-explored in the literature.
More specifically, it will attempt to explore the following questions:
- Is there a gender gap in the access to the position of assistant professorship?
- What are the reasons underneath and – more specifically – what the contribution of organizational factors – from the scientific field to the feminization of the organization up to the organizational performance – in explaining inequalities?
- Do women take a longer time to obtain tenured than men?
- With respect to the Italian field: does the gap has changed over time? And more specifically: did the gap change after the implementation of the L. 240/2010 and the 2007-2017 cuts in the funds for the turn-over?
The field
Longitudinal administrative micro data of the Italian academic population have been accessed with the agreement and support of the Italian Ministry of University and Research (Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca: MUR). The data include demographic and work-related information, as well as individual productivity based on the National Scientific Qualification (ASN), and they have been enriched with web-scrapped information on organizational performance indicators. On the Swiss side, and for the first time, two academic organizations – the University of Lausanne and the University of Geneva – have provided the microdata regarding their academic work-force through time. Such data contain detailed demographic and work-related information and will be enriched with web-scrapped information on individual productivity. The two datasets will be analyzed with advanced longitudinal methods. On a more descriptive level, WIRED can count on the data provided by the FSO (Federal Statistical Office) on the whole academic Swiss population which have been analyzed through descriptive statistics in order to understand the general trends of the workforce at the national level.
The results
Coming soon