The results of research

The university lecturers, doctoral researchers and habilitation candidates interviewed unanimously considered a university career as a risky and unpredictable stage of their professional life. There are many similarities, but there are also differences: Some problems already become known in the doctoral phase, while others only become relevant with the habilitation. Essential differences and substantial agreements are presented in the following paragraphs.

Doctoral researchers

1. The survey of 37 professors and 12 doctoral researchers revealed that doctoral positions were rarely advertised publicly. A long, personal contact was decisive for the selection of junior researchers.

2. The remuneration of the doctoral researchers turned out to be very different. Some doctoral students financed themselves while others had a full-time position. Only two out of twelve (one woman, one man) supported themselves financially with a contract at university for the duration of the doctoral studies. The remaining 10 doctoral students had a very uncertain financial future with regard to their doctoral studies.
5 out of 37 professors were employed full-time as doctoral researchers and were financed by third party-funding. The contracts for these PhD positions generally covered a two-year period.

3. The presumption that doctoral students are only interested in a university-oriented career proved false. None of the 12 persons interviewed explicitly intended to pursue an academic career. Only one woman aspired a research career, but not at university. The remaining interviewees considered a career at university as unattractive. This limited appeal of an academic position was reflected in the statements of the 37 professors interviewed. 21 of them assumed that the reasons for pursuing a doctorate resulted from a possible improvement of job opportunities outside of the university. Furthermore, their answers suggested that a doctorate is supposed to be an exception in their department.

4. In career research, the integration into the “scientific community” is considered a key factor for an academic career. The interviewees admitted that their scientific career developed primarily without the support of a university lecturer. Their academic career was mostly limited to their own status group within the university.

5. Doctoral researchers described the supervision of their doctoral thesis very differently. 2 of the 12 interviewed persons (one woman, one man) mentioned a reliable and continuous supervision. In cases where doctoral candidates described the doctoral supervision as sporadic or non-existent, another scientific employee of the chair supervised the thesis. The support from administrative staff members was a key factor as well, especially from office assistants. They often provided psychosocial support to the doctoral students.

6. The persons interviewed considered gender a significant factor. 10 of 12 doctoral students interviewed characterised research at universities as a male preserve because a) men have personality traits considered important for a scientific career and b) men do not choose to have a child instead of a career.

•     A) Male doctoral candidates attributed a lack of personality traits that are important to scientists to their female colleagues. Therefore, the absence of women in science is based on the willingness to make sacrifices for the sake of science and a lack of assertiveness, determination, career orientation, competitiveness and perseverance. Male doctoral candidates share this opinion with almost half (18) of the university lectures interviewed (37).
  Female doctoral candidates reported subtle and at the same time unequivocal signals. Their male colleagues made it clear that female doctoral candidates had no business to be at university as researchers. In these cases, the women used different strategies to meet degradation and exclusion. They tried to invalidate the prejudice of lacking personality traits that are important to scientists by performing well. Other strategies included on the one hand adapting to or clearly distancing themselves from male behaviour like arrogance and on the other hand retreating into certain specialised scientific fields.
•     B) Science is a male preserve, because women decide to have a family instead of pursuing a scientific career, which is the prevailing view of the interviewed university lecturers (32 of 37). However, only two doctoral students, one female and one male, shared this view.

Habilitation candidates

1. A long-standing professional relationship and a personal invitation of the professor is crucial for the majority of habilitation candidates to enter the second phase of the academic career. Universities rarely advertised the positions to qualify candidates as a university lecturer publicly. The wish to complete a habilitation was not based on a goal-oriented career planning.

2. Like doctoral candidates, the postdoctoral researchers were assigned to the group of the non-professorial academic staff. They received employment contracts mainly on a temporary basis and had to accept great differences with regard to financial support and working hours. 23 of 37 persons (8 women, 15 men) interviewed had temporary full-time positions with different salaries (eight women, 15 men). Four of the persons interviewed (two women, two men) were no employees of the university. Four other persons (three women, one man) had an unlimited employment contract.

A large part of the habilitation candidates considered the discrepancy between the low occupational status and the enormous performance requirements to be a very frustrating experience.

3. The average age of the women was 38, of the men 39. At the time of the survey, age varied enormously: The age range for women was 17 years. The oldest woman was born in 1952, the youngest one in 1969. The age range for men was even wider at around 23 years. The oldest one was born in 1949, the youngest one in 1972.

4. The habilitation candidates described their situation unanimously as a double dependency. They were dependent on their supervisor’s status, prestige, and good will with regard to their habilitation on the one hand and their professional existence on the other. In the interviewees’ opinion, the quality of their academic performance and their professional commitment did not make a significant contribution to the success of this stage in their career. Being loyal, i.e., the willingness to take on significant more tasks than those stipulated by contract, was described as a significant instrument for career purposes. To the men interviewed this meant to take on high-status tasks like the acquisition and organisation of research projects or take on the informal position of an interim professor. To women being loyal meant to take on administrative tasks of a lower status.

5. Most of the interviewees were excluded from professional networks of the academic professions even during their habilitation. Despite their previous professional experience, women considered the internal principles of the research sector as being non-transparent. Some of the interviewees compensated this lack of contacts by networking with members of their own status group.

6. Some habilitation candidates considered their professional situation a privilege because of the freedom of research and freedom of thought related to it, including temporal independence when organising their work. Nevertheless, the interviewees talked of limitations: a) temporal autonomy was impeded by a high amount of work, which had a negative impact on the employee’s private life; b) the freedom of research was limited by bureaucratic requirements; and c) the freedom of thought was regulated by the existing scientific competition and an increased market orientation.

7. Many habilitation students consider science a male-dominated field because a) men have suitable personality traits that are important to scientists, b) women decide to have children and not to pursue an academic career and c) established male scientists do not want women to move up the scientific career ladder.

•     A) From their male colleagues’ point of view, women fail in science because as a woman, they lack career-related personal traits such as assertiveness, assertiveness, determination, career orientation, competitiveness and stamina – all attributes with male connotations.
  The majority of the interviewed women gave account of jokes, ambiguities, and passing comments of their male colleagues expressing prejudices against the female sex.
  Women who had completed their habilitation reacted to these signals of devaluation and exclusion with the willingness to deliver maximum performance and an even higher commitment to their profession. Three of them explicitly gave up having children in favour of their career. Two of them hoped that, in case of doubt, legal provisions would prevent them from being excluded from science research.
•     B) Science is a male preserve, because women decide to have a family instead of pursuing a scientific career – this was the reason given by ten of the habilitation candidates surveyed, regardless of gender.
•     C) Based on their insight into some appointment procedures, the habilitation candidates mentioned unwritten rules only used if women participated in an application procedure, e.g., they were not listed on the final candidates list and gender equity legislations were discredited ridiculous. Women who were nonetheless listed on the final candidates list were ridiculed either during their rehearsal talk or during the following session. This happened in a way that in rare cases steps could be taken against this behaviour.

8. According to the interviewees, an academic career is in principle incompatible with a family or children, because of its great uncertainty in planning and the high level of personal commitment required. However, this view applied more to women than to men with habilitation intentions.

The majority of the twelve fathers interviewed were able to fall back on partners who were supportive of their academic careers. Their partners “kept their options open” within the family and provided a livelihood for the family.

The five interviewees – female academics with children – indicated that there was no comparable equivalent private or institutionalised system of support. Mothers told unanimously about serious deficiencies concerning the institutionalised provision of childcare. At more or less regular intervals, these deficiencies lead to an organisational or emotional crisis because it made it more difficult to reconcile family and job. Both fathers interviewed, who deviated from the ideal of a researcher without family duties, talked about organisational and emotional crises based on the institutionalised child-care.

9. The habilitation candidates viewed the amendment of the General Act on Higher Education rather critically. The majority of the interviewees had doubts about whether abolishing the habilitation process would be successful. They did not expect a general improvement by establishing the junior professorship. The majority of the interviewees are afraid that their personal dependency will develop into a large dependency on several people. As the aspect of personal dependency with regard to the junior professorship, the patronage, was dropped, the habilitation candidates expected an increase of rivalry with the well-established professors.

Project leader:
Dr. Christel Hornstein

Project team member:
Dipl.-Soz. Wiss. Susanne Achterberg

E-Mail:
gleichstellung[at]uni-wuppertal.de

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