Closing and widening gaps in the competing risks of academic career

Abstract

Gender parity and internationalization of the academic staff appear to be welcome at the lower layers of the academic ladder. The higher the rank, however, the rarer women and foreigners. One often proposed explanation is that women and foreigners would be less persistent, or less patient. A second common explanation is that women and foreigners find it more difficult to advance the career ladder. Demographic differences in career progressions have been investigated in the Higher Education sector. Several studies have found a gender gap in promotion, in several disciplines and countries, while much less research has focused on career progression of foreign and mobile scientists. This article aims at identifying some key factors predicting career advancement at various steps of the academic career, and to determine to what extent differences in career advancement of different categories of academics – particularly by gender and nationality – derive from differences in persistence and/or from difficulties in advancing the career ladder. We explore these questions through a 20 years longitudinal dataset of the careers of scientists in the Flemish university system.