faculty were a minority of teriured faculty in the sciences." Figure 6 shows 

 that the percentage of women faculty by rank varies by field. 



Source: Nelson and Rogers, 2003. 



Several studies have discussed that some women trade off career 

 advancement or higher earnings for a job that offers flexibiUty to manage 

 work and family responsibiUties. In fact, a recent study on part-time 

 faculty found that women faculty are 6 percent more likely than men to 

 prefer pairt-time employment.'" During our site visits, women faculty told 

 us that juggUng family life with a tenure track faculty position was 

 extremely challenging. Some women told us that they felt discouraged 

 from pursuing a tenure track university position because the biological 



Dorma J. Nelson and Diana C. Rogers, A National Analysis of Diversity in Science aiid 

 Engineering Faculties at Research Universities, (Nomian, OK, 2003). 



'^Toutkoushian and Bellas, 2003. 



Page 22 



GAO-04-639 Gender Issues 



