Next: 2. Education Up: The Past, Present, and Previous: The Past, Present, and

1. Introduction

As the proportion of women graduate students continues to increase, women will likely increase the representation in academic positions. What patterns have prevailed in the past, exist today, and can be envisioned for the future? This article attempts to review data and previous studies of academic progress of female faculty.

We consider first the educational opportunities that women have been accorded. We then investigate the career progress enjoyed by women who earned doctorates and joined the faculty ranks. This investigation includes the prospects for promotion and tenure, and also considers salary differentials. Since evaluation for promotion and tenure is dependent upon job performance, most especially publication rates, this issue receives separate attention. Finally, we try to predict the future and conclude that, in spite of persistent difficulties, prospects for the future have improved considerably and that a young woman starting out today faces fewer hurdles than did her counterparts of bygone years.

This work draws heavily upon the studies of Dix (1987) (in particular, the chapters by Debold (1987), Hornig (1987) and Zuckerman (1987)), Sandler (1986), Vetter (1981, 1987), Scott (1977, 1979), Ahern and Scott (1981), among others. In a very real sense, the present article can be viewed as a review and summary of these studies and the paths over which they lead, as they pertain to the mathematical sciences. Since little data exist for statisticians per se, it is assumed throughout that the quoted existing results for mathematics are reasonable estimates for those for statistics.

Next: 2. Education Up: The Past, Present, and Previous: The Past, Present, and