James Alex, Brower Ann
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
School of Earth and Environment, University of Canterbury, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
R Soc Open Sci. 2022 Sep 7;9(9):220785. doi: 10.1098/rsos.220785. eCollection 2022 Sep.
Women are under-represented in academic staff in universities worldwide. Our work builds on other studies of 'demographic inertia'. We find that time will not bridge the gender representation gap in academia, and echo others in saying bold actions are required to reach parity. Our work then uses New Zealand's unique system of scoring individual research performance to test empirically which levers universities should pull, and in which combinations. We combine individual research performance scores with 20 years of data from one university to parametrize a rank-structured mathematical model using Leslie matrices. Our model compares three key levers of change at universities' disposal-hiring, promotion and attrition. We apply the model to a bifurcated population of university staff-those with high research activity, and those who are moderately active-based on their national research quality score. We then test levers in various combinations that management could pull to improve gender representation. We find that the solutions are different for the high versus moderate research performers. For individuals with high research activity, universities should concentrate on equitable hiring practices. For those with more moderate research activity, more equitable promotion practices hold the key.
在全球范围内的大学学术人员中，女性所占比例较低。我们的研究建立在其他关于“人口惯性”的研究基础之上。我们发现时间并不能弥合学术界的性别代表性差距，并且与其他人的观点一致，即需要采取大胆行动才能实现平等。我们的研究随后利用新西兰独特的个人研究绩效评分系统，通过实证检验大学应该动用哪些杠杆以及以何种组合方式来实现这一目标。我们将个人研究绩效分数与一所大学20年的数据相结合，使用莱斯利矩阵来参数化一个等级结构的数学模型。我们的模型比较了大学可采用的三个关键变革杠杆——招聘、晋升和人员流动。我们将该模型应用于大学工作人员的两类人群——根据其国家研究质量得分，分为研究活动频繁的人员和研究活动中等的人员。然后，我们测试管理层为改善性别代表性而可能采用的各种杠杆组合。我们发现，对于研究表现高和中等的人员，解决方案是不同的。对于研究活动频繁的个人，大学应专注于公平的招聘做法。对于研究活动较为中等的人员，更公平的晋升做法是关键。
