SBP: Major Disadvantages: Career Ambitions and Inequality by College Field of Study in Early Careers

该奖项是美国国家科学基金会社会、行为和经济科学博士后研究奖学金（SPRF）计划的一部分。SPRF计划的目标是为学术界、工业界或私营部门和政府的科学事业准备有前途的早期职业博士级科学家。SPRF奖励包括在知名科学家的赞助下进行为期两年的培训，并鼓励博士后进行独立研究。美国国家科学基金会寻求促进科学界各阶层的科学家，包括那些未被充分代表的群体的科学家，参与其研究项目和活动；博士后阶段被认为是实现这一目标的一个重要的专业发展阶段。每个博士后必须解决各自学科领域的重要科学问题。在密歇根大学（University of Michigan）的伊丽莎白·a·阿姆斯特朗（Elizabeth A. Armstrong）博士的赞助下，这个博士后奖学金奖支持一位研究职场性别不平等的早期职业科学家。我们对劳动力中职业中期的性别不平等了解很多，比如歧视限制了女性的晋升机会，以及女性如何不平等地承担工作/家庭冲突的负担。这种不平等可能会导致女性在职业生涯早期改变职业规划，但我们对早期职业经历如何影响这一结果知之甚少。这项研究将确定人们对工作场所的期望何时开始转变，以及这些变化是否与工作中经历或观察到的不平等、家庭期望或其他因素有关。研究结果将有助于深入了解女性如何在劳动力市场中更好地定位，扩大她们在高地位工作中的参与度，并缩小职业等级中存在的性别差距。该项目将调查男性和女性的早期职业经历，从大学实习到进入职场的第四年，以了解个人何时以及如何开始改变他们的职业规划，以及这些决定是如何被工作中观察或经历关系不平等的工人告知的。关系不平等是一个概念，它描述了认知偏见以及显性和隐性歧视如何解释女性在整个职业生涯中受到与男性同事不同的待遇。研究将通过收集来自四个专业的大学毕业生的第三波纵向访谈来完成，其中两个专业以男性为主（工程/商业），两个专业以女性为主（通信/英语）。此前，91名大学毕业生接受了实习面试，其中85人在毕业一年后接受了第二次面试。研究将满足三个目标：(1)揭示个人在职业生涯早期改变职业规划的途径；(2)解释这些途径是如何通过对关系性别不平等的经验或观察而形成的；(3)调查这两个过程如何因性别和大学学习领域而变化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is provided as part of NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (SPRF) program. The goal of the SPRF program is to prepare promising, early career doctoral-level scientists for scientific careers in academia, industry or private sector, and government. SPRF awards involve two years of training under the sponsorship of established scientists and encourage Postdoctoral Fellows to perform independent research. NSF seeks to promote the participation of scientists from all segments of the scientific community, including those from underrepresented groups, in its research programs and activities; the postdoctoral period is considered to be an important level of professional development in attaining this goal. Each Postdoctoral Fellow must address important scientific questions that advance their respective disciplinary fields. Under the sponsorship of Dr. Elizabeth A. Armstrong at the University of Michigan, this postdoctoral fellowship award supports an early career scientist investigating workplace gender inequality among recent college graduates. We know a good deal about mid-career gender inequality in the labor force, such as discrimination limiting women’s advancement opportunities and how burdens of work/family conflicts are borne unequally by women. Exposure to this inequality may cause women to change their professional plans early in their careers, however we know little about how early career experiences might contribute to this outcome. This research will identify when people’s workplace expectations begin to shift and if these are related to inequality experienced or observed at work, family expectations, or other considerations. Findings will lend insight into how women can be better positioned in the labor market, broadening their participation in high status jobs, and closing gender gaps that exists across the occupational hierarchy.The project will investigate men and women’s early career experiences from college internships to their fourth year in the workforce in order to learn when and how individuals begin to change their career plans and how these decisions are informed by workers observing or experiencing relational inequality at work. Relational inequality is a concept capturing how cognitive biases, along with explicit and implicit discrimination, explain how women are treated differently than their male co-workers throughout their careers. Research will be accomplished by collecting a third wave of longitudinal interviews with college graduates from four majors, two that are male-dominated (Engineering/Business), and two that are female-dominated (Communications/English). Previously, 91 college seniors were interviewed about their internships and 85 of them were retained for a second interview one year later after graduation. Research will meet three objectives: (1) uncover the pathways through which individuals change their career plans early in their careers, (2) explain how these pathways are shaped by experiences, or observations, of relational gender inequality, (3) investigate how these two processes vary by gender and college field of study.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.