The Two-Body Problem: An Evaluation of University Partner Accommodation Policies with Implications for Recruitment, Retention, and Promotion of STEM Women

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Despite decades of various efforts meant to increase the number of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines, women in these fields remain under-represented on university faculties. Female faculty in STEM disciplines are more likely than their male counterparts to be partnered with another academic and more likely than men to refuse a job offer if their partners cannot find adequate employment at the same location. In light of such facts, and in an effort to increase the proportion of female faculty in STEM fields, many universities have adopted partner-accommodation policies (PAPs). Until now the prevalence and type of PAPs in U.S. universities and the efficacy of PAPs to recruit productive faculty as well as recruit and retain women STEM faculty has been unknown. This research provides a much needed description of PAPs in U.S. universities, as well as both theoretical and empirical evaluations of PAPs and their implications for the recruitment, retention, and promotion of women in STEM disciplines. The current state of PAPs will be documented and the relationship between PAPs and the gender diversity in STEM fields will be estimated. A rigorous modeling approach enriched with insights from sociology and economics will be developed and testedwith faculty productivity, retention, and promotion data via the collaboration of an informationtechnology expert who specializes in coordinated academic data collection and analysis. The theoretical model predicts that in any institution other than the most selective, a faculty member who is hired as part of a dual hire couple is likely to be more productive than an individual hire. Preliminary findings at Washington State University (WSU) support the hypothesis that, on average, faculty hired via a PAP program are more productive in terms of publications and grants, less likely to leave the university, and more likely to obtain tenure and promotion than faculty hired outside of formal PAP programs. In addition to WSU, data has been obtained from University of Wyoming. Agreements to acquire data have been made with Virginia Tech and Southern Connecticut State University, with additional requests at four other universities. Datawill also be collected via the internet and randomly selected follow-up phone interviews to assess the existence and type of PAPs and sex composition of STEM fields at 270 institutions. A web-based survey of tenure-line faculty will be administered as part of this proposed project. The survey will focus on faculty?s non-academic life (e.g., parental status, age of children in the home, marital status and timing), race/ethnic background, job search strategies, career and job satisfaction, anticipated mobility, long-term commitment to the university and their experiences, if any, being part of an academic dual-career couple and use of university PAPs. Increasing the representation of women in STEM faculties is a general societal objective. Understanding the impact of PAPs is one potential approach to finding effective ways to increase the number and the success of women on university faculties in technical disciplines.