«Exploring the leaky pipeline: Tokenism, status group effects, or self-selection?» - new research paper by Margit Osterloh and Katja Rost
Why are only 25% full professorships in most European universities held by women, if the rate of bachelor's degrees awarded is 50%? – while previous explanations refer to gender biases and stereotypes, motherhood, discrimination, and tokenism, Profs. Osterloh and Rost's newest study challenges old theories and reveals surprising insights into gender gaps across academic fields.
A new research article has been published:
«Exploring the leaky pipeline: Tokenism, status group effects, or self-selection?»
Margit Osterloh, Katja Rost
Published 15. July 2025 in European Management Review
Read full article here:
https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.70021
Abstract:
In most European universities today, more than 50% of bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women, but the corresponding share of full professorships is only about 25%. This phenomenon is called the leaky pipeline. Most explanations referto gender biases and stereotypes, motherhood, discrimination, and tokenism. Wet ake a novel approach by comparing the leaky pipeline across various fields of study in the two largest Swiss universities. We start from Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s token hypothesis, which suggests that women suffer from their minority position. According to this hypothesis, it is expected that the higher women’s share of positions is in a field of study, the less pronounced is the leaky pipeline. In contrast,the status group hypothesis and the self-selection hypothesis each predict different outcomes: The higher women’s share of a field of study is, the more pronounced is the leaky pipeline. Our data refute the token hypothesis. To test the second and third hypotheses, we conducted a representative survey at two Swiss universities. We find strong evidence for self-selection effects but no status group effects. Our findings show that men and women in different fields of study have different preferences that shape their careers, family dynamics and partner choices. Thus, the leaky pipeline differs across disciplines. Measures to mitigate the leaky pipeline should take these differences into account.
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