Gender Differences in the Attainment of Doctorates. Revised / Herbert Y. Wong and Jimy M. Sanders.

Different and competing theories of the disadvantagement of women in academia are explored through reviews of the literature and an examination of the graduate training experiences of men and women. An explanatory model of graduate training experiences from a human capital theory approach is constructed that considers the human capital accumulated by individuals before and during graduate school. Performance after graduate school is then understood as a function of the total human capital accumulated. Data in the study were for all doctoral recipients of the University of California, Santa Barbara, from September 1972 through June 1978. Student variables controlled for include marital status, age, number of dependents, undergraduate experience, previous graduate study, graduate performance, awards and opportunities, and prestige of faculty advisor. Despite roughly equal beginning qualifications, women tended to accumulate less human capital than men during graduate school, and may not have had equal access to career-relevant opportunities and resources. Further encouragement of women's achievement is recommended, including constantly reminding women graduate students of the importance of research and assertiveness in research involvement, and active recruitment of women as research assistants. (MSE)

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