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Title: Quantifying Structural Inequalities in the Academic Workforce

Citation Type: Dissertation/Thesis

Publication Year: 2021

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Abstract: Tenure-track faculty play a special role in society: they train future researchers, and they produce scholarship that drives social and scientific innovation. Yet there exist substantial imbalances in the amount and visibility of scholarship, and the composition of the academic workforce. In this dissertation, I investigate the structural mechanisms that reinforce inequalities in terms of prestige, gender, and social class. For instance, the diffusion of research ideas are often viewed as a competition, where the best work spreads further because of its greater intrinsic quality, though elite institutions outpace others in terms of their production and visibility. Using methods from network science I highlight faculty hiring as a mechanism for epistemic inequality, and establish the theoretical trade-offs between university prestige and the quality of ideas. Next, publications are an important proxy for promotion and funding decisions across academia, yet men and women tend to publish at unequal rates. I quantify the unequal impact of parenthood on researchers’ productivity using causal inference, and highlight how paid parental leave policies are important in the recruitment and retention of women. Finally, there exist substantial financial barriers to educational attainment in the United States. I describe the socioeconomic diversity of the professoriate by combining survey data with large public datasets on income and education, and model the importance of parental education on faculty member’s placement within academia. I conclude by discussing how this lack of diversity is likely to deeply shape the types of scholarship produced and scholars trained.

Url: https://www.proquest.com/docview/2532145406?pq-origsite=gscholar&fromopenview=true

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Authors: Morgan, A. C.

Institution: University of Colorado Boulder

Department: Department of Computer Science

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Publisher Location: Boulder

Pages: 1-125

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Education, Labor Force and Occupational Structure

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