Gender biases in assessing applicants for assistant professorships in Germany: A factorial survey experiment

Higher education institutions have implemented various affirmative action policies aimed at increasing the representation of female professors, including measures to reduce gender bias in professorship appointments. This raises the question of whether nowadays biases against women are expressed, suppressed, or even reversed in the evaluation of applicants for professorships. Research on gender bias in assistant professor appointments is very sparse and inconsistent. This factorial survey experiment with German university professors from different disciplines (mathematics, physics, economics, sociology, political science, and German studies) addresses this research gap. To simulate the situation of hiring prospective faculty by incumbent faculty, we addressed assistant, associate, and full professors who are all eligible to serve in appointment committees in Germany. The respondents evaluated short descriptions of hypothetical applicants for assistant professorships on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest) on two aspects: “perceived qualification” (i.e., whether they consider the applicant to be qualified for an assistant professorship) and “invitation propensity” (i.e., how likely they would invite the applicant to a job interview). Respondents evaluated the applicants’ profiles relative to their own disciplines. To avoid social desirability, we combine a between-subject design for applicant’s gender and a within-subject design for all other profile dimensions. Higher education institutions have implemented various affirmative action policies aimed at increasing the representation of female professors, including measures to reduce gender bias in professorship appointments. This raises the question of whether nowadays biases against women are expressed, suppressed, or even reversed in the evaluation of applicants for professorships. Research on gender bias in assistant professor appointments is very sparse and inconsistent. This factorial survey experiment with German university professors from different disciplines (mathematics, physics, economics, sociology, political science, and German studies) addresses this research gap. To simulate the situation of hiring prospective faculty by incumbent faculty, we addressed assistant, associate, and full professors who are all eligible to serve in appointment committees in Germany. The respondents evaluated short descriptions of hypothetical applicants for assistant professorships on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest) on two aspects: “perceived qualification” (i.e., whether they consider the applicant to be qualified for an assistant professorship) and “invitation propensity” (i.e., how likely they would invite the applicant to a job interview). Respondents evaluated the applicants’ profiles relative to their own disciplines. To avoid social desirability, we combine a between-subject design for applicant’s gender and a within-subject design for all other profile dimensions.