Survival Analysis of Faculty Retention in Science and Engineering by Gender

Individual assistant professors (a total of 2966 faculty) hired in science and engineering since 1990 at 14 United States universities were tracked from time of hire to time of departure by using publicly available catalogs and bulletins. Results of survival analysis showed that the chance that any given faculty member will be retained over time is less than 50%; the median time to departure is 10.9 years. Of all those who enter as assistant professors, 64.2% were promoted to associate professor at the same institution. Overall, men and women are retained and promoted at the same rate. In mathematics, however, faculty leave significantly earlier than other disciplines, and women leave significantly sooner than men, 4.45 years compared with 7.33 years.