Ginther Gives Distinguished Lecture on Gender Issues in Higher Ed
Ginther Gives Distinguished Lecture on Gender Issues in Higher Ed
Given that academia is able to more easily track measures of productivity than other industries and also has a well-defined promotion ladder, determining the extent to which a gender gap may exist has become an increasingly relevant line of research developed in recent years by KU’s own Dr. Donna Ginther, the Roy A. Roberts and Regents Distinguished Professor of Economics.
Dr. Ginther outlined her findings at the Kansas Memorial Union on November 8 in a special KU Distinguished Professor Lecture Series designed to highlight the work of the approximately 80 distinguished professors on campus. Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs Amy Mendenhall said that KU was scheduling seven such lectures for the current academic year.
During the lecture (“Turning the Research Lens on Ourselves: What Do We Know About Pay, Promotion, and Grants in the Academy?”), Dr. Ginther thanked multiple collaborators and co-authors over the past 19 years since she first landed a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Many of the most recent results were derived from data obtained from Academic Analytics, which monitors publications, citations, grants and awards obtained by faculty at institutions around the country.
She explained that one important factor in the analysis is that academic employers have some form of monopsony power, a market situation where there is only one buyer. Her research suggests that women economists are 15-18 percent less likely to get tenure than male economists, everything else being equal. A similar kind of gender bias is evident with political scientists but not generally discernible in other fields based on the data.
On the other hand, women apparently do have higher success rates than men in terms of getting NSF grants; and are at least equally likely to obtain National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants.
“What we do know is that otherwise similar universities vary considerably in terms of how they end up compensating their faculty,” she added.
Dr. Ginther said that she was pleased to have been involved with efforts undertaken by the American Economic Association (AEA) to better address issues associated with sexual harassment and bullying (through the AEA Committee on Equity, Diversion and Professional Conduct). She said that continuing to increase the number of women economists would help reduce harassment and other unacceptable behavior.
Also nationally renowned for quantifying the extent to which racial disparities exist in terms of NIH funding, in 2021 she received the prestigious American Society for Cell Biology Public Service Award (a year after Dr. Anthony Fauci received that award) for her work on identifying a need for diversity and inclusiveness within the scientific community.
“Many scholars do their work in labs and tend to avoid the public stage. Not so with Donna, which is why we are so blessed to be able to feature her and all of her contributions to the university and the state,” said Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer.