Does gender matter for promotion in science? Evidence from physicists in France

In this study, we investigate what are the factors of the promotion of female and male scientists at the French Institute of Physics (INP) at CNRS, one of the largest European public research organisations. We construct a long panel of INP physicists combining various data sources on their research activities and careers. Using event history analysis, we find that female and male physicists have the same rate of promotion from junior to senior positions when controlling for research productivity and a variety of other promotion factors. Our results also suggest that promotion factors such as family characteristics, mentoring, professional network, research responsibilities have different impacts on female and male researchers.

Keywords: Gender disparity, Promotion, Research productivity, Family characteristics, Research Responsibilities, Mentoring activities, Panel Data, Event history analysis

JEL Classification: I23, J16