Beyond the Academic Glass Ceiling: Notes on the Situation of Women Professors in Brazil (original) (raw)

Academic career and gender inequalities in Brazil: the effect of postdoctoral mobility abroad

SciELO Preprints, 2023

Empirical studies have pointed out that academic mobility can increase social capital, contribute to collaborations, and directly influence overall career success (Dueñas-Fernández, Iglesias-Fernández & Llorente-Heras, 2013). However, it is also known that both academic mobility and international scientific collaborations can be negatively impacted by gender inequality. Regarding international mobility, women are underrepresented in all areas of knowledge (Momeni et al., 2022). In science, immobility or low mobility is commonly associated with slower career progression; scarce opportunities to hold coordination and management positions ("glass ceiling"); less insertion in international collaboration networks; and even abandonment of science (Delicado & Alves, 2013; van der Wal, 2021). The overload of family functions and the partnering effect (Ackers, 2004) are among the obstacles that women may face, which can limit researchers' displacement opportunities (Momeni et al., 2022). This scenario justifies the importance of exploring the international mobility undertaken by Brazilian researchers to analyze, among other aspects, the possible gender imbalances in academic mobility. The population investigated in this research will be comprised of Brazilians who have done postdoctoral studies abroad. This selection is because they are more advanced in their professional and training trajectories. The phase after the doctorate makes the researcher more independent and responsible for their research agenda, which would leave them better able to conduct high-impact studies (Nerad et al., 2022). The work aims to design research that evaluates the effect of postdoctoral mobility abroad on employment in the academic career, considering gender inequality and institutional and systemic aspects (such as area of knowledge, academic productivity, and career position) (Aksnes et al., 2019). For this, a consolidated database will be built based on former postdoctoral fellows of the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the triangulation of a set of data sources since there is no consolidated database on mobility and employment ties in the Brazilian case. Next, a comparative study with a descriptive and exploratory design will be carried out between those who had postdoctoral fellowships abroad and those who had postdoctoral fellowships in Brazil without an internship abroad, and which aims, in the future, to enable the carrying out of a quasi-experiment.