Study Finds That for History Faculty It Takes Women Longer Than Men to Earn Promotions

A new study by Robert B. Townsend, deputy director of the American Historical Association, finds that it takes longer for married women historians to get promoted to full professor than it does for single women in the field. And both married and single women take longer to get promoted than male historians.

The data in Dr. Townsend’s paper shows that on average it takes 7.8 years for married women to be promoted to full professor after they were named an associate professor. For women who had never been married, the average time to promotion was 6.7 years. For married men, the average time from promotion to associate professor to appointment to full professor was 5.9 years and for single men 6.4 years.

Women history faculty were 7.5 times as likely as their male peers to take a leave following the birth of a child. Also women historians were twice as likely as male historians to take any leave for childcare purposes.

The paper is available to AHA members here.