Gender Differences In The Career Development Of Faculties

In Chinese labour market,women have long been participants as important as men,but in many positions,women still lag behind men.In existing studies,the gender differences of the career development are usually explained as the results of gender discrimination and human capital gap.Unlike other labor organizations,Universities offer a relatively clear and gender-neutral rules for rank promotion,and accurately quantified evaluation standards of performance,where female faculties professional still fall behind male counterparts in career development overall.Under the same starting line and the clear evaluation standards of vocational competition,why do gender differences gradually accumulate during the process of career development?This paper takes cultural process theory as an analytical framework to explain the influencing mechanism of the gender gap that female faculties generally keep falling behind males in career development.Cultural process theory points out that inequality is produced(and reproduced)by a series processes,which are perceived as routine and normal behaviors of both dominant and subordinate actors.Those specific processes can be summarized as identification and rationalization processes.Identification is based on clear boundaries,through which different identities will be formed for groups with different attributes,resulting in varying allocation of materials or opportunities among different categories.Rationalization refers to various rules formed in pursuit of maximum efficiency,and institutional rules designed according to the rational principles are considered neutral and fair.However,inequality is rationalized when rational institutions are combined with historically accumulated inequalities(Lamont et al.,2014).Gender gap in the career development is the result of the combination of the two processes: gender conception constructs different gender norms and social roles,and the promotion outcomes are resulted from a gender neutral,transparent and quantifiable evaluation standards system.The basic two different processes interact together,leading to the professional gender gap.Considering that gender norms was shaped by gender culture,rationalization rises along with the modernization process and the career development located in a particular organization,thus this paper selects gender culture,economic institutions and organizational characteristics to explain why female faculty generally lag behind their male counterparts in career development.The main findings of this article are as follows.From the perspective of gender composition,the proportion of female faculties is higher where the awareness of gender equality is more prevailing.Regions with higher marketorientation has a lower percentage of female faculties.At the organizational level,as university ranking ascending and academic strength increasing,the proportion of female faculties is decreasing.The proportion of female teachers is significantly lower in comprehensive and normal universities than that in other universities,and the female proportion in humanity is significantly higher than that in other disciplines.As for the promotion of teachers' professional ranks,where the more equal the gender belief is,the higher the proportion of female professors is,which is mainly because the concept of gender equality promotes the participation of female teachers in colleges and universities.With the process of marketization and globalization,male faculties are more likely to be promoted as full professors.At the organizational level,with higher requirements of academic performance,less female teachers can get promoted to full professors.Compared with other disciplines,female faculties in life sciences are significantly more likely to obtain the professorship.Among the college leadership,where the more equal the gender awareness is,the higher the proportion of women in the college leadership is.Because the concept of gender equality promotes the proportion of women in academia,and then indirectly increases the proportion of women in the college leadership positions.In more market-oriented and globalized regions,female faculties have more opportunities to be promoted into leading team.And at the organizational level,the percentage of women in executive leadership in social sciences is significantly lower than in other disciplines.Due to the research results,this paper finds that cultural process theory can explain the gender gap of career achievements between female and male faculties.First,traditional gender concepts lead to gender segregation in higher education.The awareness of gender equality helps to narrow the gender gap and increase the occupation ratio of female teachers,professors and leaders in colleges.Second,the gender-neutral and performance-oriented evaluation system consolidates men's advantages in rank promotion and rationalizes the gender gap which should have provided a competitive environment based on merit for all faculties.Based on the above findings,this paper suggests that it be necessary to improve the social security system and modify labor protection legislation,cultivate public respect for female scientists and provide a more female-friendly environment for them in order to relieve the physical and psychological pressure of female faculties brought by childbirth and social norms,and then stimulate their academic potential.