Gender and Academic Promotion to Full Professor in Ontario

Abstract

This is a study of 933 academic promotions from associate to full professor in Ontario, Canada for the period 2010-2014. Publicly available sources provided a bibliometric profile including gender, year of promotion, university, academic discipline, salary, type and number of publications and number of authors for each promotion to full professor. We found a large gender gap in academic promotions favouring men, which is explained mainly by a structural focus on male-dominated academic disciplines. We also found large differences in numbers of publications by academic discipline, which was substantially reduced after considering the number of authors per publication. Business professors were paid substantially more than other professors at the time of promotion. Our study focused on publications, and given this limitation the results should be taken in the context that there are multiple considerations for promotion. Publication quality and impact, grants and patents, were not adjusted for.