COMPARING EDUCATIONAL TRAJECTORY AND PROFESSIONAL MOBILITY IN

ACADEMIC ORGANIZATIONS FROM A LIFE COURSE PERSPECTIVE

ABSTRACT (150 words + 5 Key words)

Además de la segregación horizontal, se encuentran las dificultades asociadas con el avance en la vida
laboral o académica que viven las mujeres y las personas con orientaciones e identidades sexuales
diversas. En este sentido la segregación vertical hace referencia a las barreras que obstaculizan el
ascenso de las mujeres en igualdad de oportunidades para ocupar cargos decisorios en el espacio
universitario. (p. 24, UNAL- Avances y retos para la equidad).

A life-course assessment of candidates’ profiles could help us determine whether there are any
investment variations to overcome sociocultural barriers and earn a fair opportunity to reach a
position at the top of the hierarchy. Overall, the study closely assessed the meritocratic process
inside the designation of academic directive positions. Findings could set the current state of
affairs for the organizational practices, professional profiles of candidates aspiring to the
executive role of university rector, all of which have great potential to inform the design and
assessment policies aiming at equal opportunity and anti-discriminatory organizational systems.

Administrative data and official registries are valuable sources of data but they do not offer
information to answer questions regarding psychological wellbeing, life plans, and perceptions
(p.9). A life course perspective invites diachronic (time-based) rather than synchronic (point in
time) comparisons (Settersten, 2020, p.10)

Surely, educational credentials help gain entry to lower management jobs, but subjective social
factors such as the accumulation of networks, facilitate the advancement into upper manager
and executive levels (Ibarra & Smith-Lovin, 1997). Unfortunately, women accumulate fewer
resources than men do at early and mid-career, despite their human capital, because of
employment discontinuity and discrimination. (Parapharse this)
 1. INTRODUCTION

(Rephrase this) In the EU-28, as recently as 2014, only 20.1% of the heads of higher education

institutions, and 28% of the members and 22% of the leaders of national decision-making boards, such as

research councils or foundations, were women (European Commission, 2015).

„The life-course perspective provides an analytical lense to understand how unequal outcomes
between men and women accumulate over time and are linked to critical events in the life
course, including educational attaintment, parenthood and partnership dynamics” (Fasang and
Vargha, 2020)
Goal
To examine candidates’ trajectory through the university’s internal organizational structure as
well as the impact of simultaneous and previous experience in other professional sectors to
accelerate or delay their mobility. And the influential role of the quota law between 2000 and
2020 in women’s access to positions of authority

The study evaluated application materials for male and female equally qualified candidates.

Life-course analysis of women access to executive roles.

Life course comparison of academic background and administrative experience.

Foci of analysis:
 - Time lapse between the first and last degree obtained (how long did it take to complete
their education)
- Time lapse between the first and last administrative role (How many years of overall
experience)

THEORETICAL
Human Capital: Evaluation of Educational attaintment and training to promote occupational
mobility.
CONCEPTUAL FRAME
“In sociology, mobility encompasses a wide variety of factors that individuals and groups can
experience… Education-related mobility happens during school or university in order to gain new
experiences and skills (e.g. learning a language during a stay abroad), or prior to a new education phase
in order to be able to visit a certain institution (Christie, 2007; Holdsworth, 2009)… (page 2),

“On the labor market, occupational mobility can occur when individuals change their (more or less
narrowly defined) profession, while job mobility is characterized by employer changes. Here, too, both
types of mobility can happen simultaneously, although it is also possible for an individual to only change
their occupation but continue to work for the same employer – for example after a promotion to a
position with different tasks – or vice versa.” (p. 3)

“Moving upward is associated with obtaining a higher social status, e.g. by getting a higher education or
a job that is more prestigious or better paid. Horizontal mobility, on the other hand, means changing to a
position that is perceived as different, but not as better or worse, which can be the case when the same
kind of job is performed in a different division within an organization (DiPrete, 1987; Martin & Strauss,
1956). This highlights the importance that changes on the labor market can have for an individual.” (p. 4)

“Education is another prominent factor for stratification processes (Kerckhoff, 2001). It fulfills a
placement function in society, regulating access to certain social positions, and correlates with social
mobility. Processes of social exclusion can therefore also be tied to education (Geißler, 2002: 333).
Depending on the outcome, results can thus be expected to differ between groups with different
amounts or with different types of education.” (p. 5)

Mobility of Labour
Type: Occupational mobility which could be Horizontal, when moving from one occupation to
another in the same grade or level; or Vertical mobility when  moving to another occupation in a
higher grade and status due to different factors such as education and training.

“Horizontal gender segregation means that gender ratios vary across specific scientific disciplines. Men
tend to predominate in some fields and women in others, which is easily observed among students”
(European Commission, 2015) (Voorspoel, p. 35). “The staff groups include tenured professors, pre- and
postdoctoral researchers, assisting academic staff, and administrative-technical staff. Sometimes, on
central boards, the represented unit groups are regrouped into three scientific domains. At the faculty
level, unit groups include departments or specific (sub)disciplines. Informal criteria include expertise,
commitment, and language, for instance. Actors co-opt, delegate, or elect (candidate) members to
respective boards or commissions. Student representatives organize yearly elections, for instance, and
faculty actors delegate professor(s) and assistant(s) to the education board. In light of the research
question, we emphasize that these composition processes take place in a gender-segregated
organization. Characterized by both horizontal and vertical segregation, the university’s shares of men
and women vary across scientific fields and disciplines, and the higher up the career ladder, the smaller
the proportion of women.” (Voorspoel, p. 81).

“The ongoing gender segregation in research, science and academia has been well documented. On the
one hand, the variation of gender ratios across scientific fields points at a horizontal gender segregation.
A phenomenon whereby men tend to predominate in some fields and women in others, which is also
observable at the stage of undergraduate studies (European Commission, 2015). On the other hand,
there is also clear vertical gender segregation. Fewer women are to be found at each next career step
and men are largely overrepresented among the highest ranks of the academic profession (e.g. Dubois-
Shaik & Fusulier, 2016). This vertical segregation tends to be referred to as the ‘scissors diagram’, which
visualizes a ‘leaky pipeline’ that continuously loses women along the path of an academic career. Over
the last decades, research has started to document the causes of this horizontal and vertical gender
segregation (e.g. Bevan & Learmonth, 2013; Bornmann et al., 2007; Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer, & Freeland,
2015). We address this phenomenon of vertical gender segregation in academia, particularly since this
phenomenon spills over into an underrepresentation of women in academic decision-making bodies.”
(voorspoels, p. 97)

(Rephrase this) horizontal gender segregation entails that gender ratios vary across specific scientific
disciplines. Men tend to predominate in some fields and women in others, which is easily observed
among students (European Commission, 2015)

Policy Context

(Rephrase this) Colombia has a very well structured policy system to promote equity,
involvement, and participation, such as gender-based policies for non-discrimination of salaries
and job opportunities, parental leave, prevention of gender-based violence, the Quota Law, the
creation of the national presidential office to manage gender-related issues (Consejeria
presidencial para la equidad de la mujer), the “from Zero to Forever” (Cero a Siempre) strategy
to support early childhood care, and the Equipares program providing tax incentives for
companies that hire more women and meet good gender practices (OECD, 2017). MENTION
THE QUOTA TOO.
Gender Quota regulation to determine whether there are different outcomes between regulated
and not regulated organizations.

Institutional Context.

(Review the procedures and requirements for every key position of low, mid and top
managament)

Expectations:
Taking into consideration the social role assigned to different genders, it is expected that women
would take longer to complete their education and accumulate work experience, during life
transitions such as marriage and motherhood. Consequently, their overall administrative
experience will be lower or come at later stages (after more years than men).
However, in Colombia, most women get married between 22 and 25 years old (Gender Index
Gap, 2014) and have their first child at 27 years old (Gender Index Gap, 2018), which denotes a
generalized delay in specific life-events that should be reflected in women’s educational path.
Therefore, their time-lapse should be similar to men’s time lapse. Still women’s professional
experience could be reduced for having more breaks in the following years.
On the other hand, men’s educational path and administrative experience is assumed to be more
consecutive than women’s path, since they take less time and have less interruptions for the
completions of all their degrees and for their professional mobility up the organizational
hierarchy.

QUESTIONS

- How does education and professional life course trajectories vary for men and
women?
- Are there more opportunities/less career breaks for male candidates?

DATA

Candidates’ curriculums are carefully examined to determine work-education trajectories. For

comparative purposes, the analysis focuses on Colombian public universities, whose last
designation process included both female and male candidates. Likewise, candidates with missing
information were also omitted.
The independent variables are candidates’ gender. Educational attainment is categorized in three
levels of tertiary education based on the International Standard Classification of Education
(ISCED, 2011)

Administrative experience is specified with three states that indicate the organizational sector:
ACE refers to academic sector experience, PRE to private sector experience, and PUE to public
sector experience. ACE is further differentiated according to the standard organizational
hierarchy of Colombian public universities, PRE is categorized by the standard top, middle and
low management levels, and PUE is differentiated according to the scale proposed by the national
Ordinance 1569 of 1998 to classify public servants’ positions (See Table 1).

Table 1. Directive hierarchy of academic, private, and state organizations

Top Middle Low

Academic Board of directors Vice Rector Coordinator
Rector Dean Supervisor
Academic Council Chairperson/Director
Private
Public/Statal* Directive Level Executive level Administrative
Governor Director/Chairperson level
Major (Secretary,
Gral/finance/regional/technical/ Coordinator
Admin/ director Supervisor)
Gral/regional Manager

*University rector, vice rector, and dean positions are also listed as public sector directive roles, but they were
deleted from the table in order to avoid confusion.

Meanwhile, educational levels are specified with three additional combinations: SPE for
specialization degrees, MA for master’s degrees, and PHD for doctoral degrees.

On a more focal level, academic work sequences are coded according to the organizational
hierarchies of Colombian public universities, both for administrative academic staff and faculty
members. Starting with top-level management with value 1, which include governing boards
(also known as boards of directors), the president (also known as chancellor or rector) of the
university, and the academic council or academic senate in representation of the faculty body.
The middle-level of management, with a value of 2, is composed by the vice chancellors, deans,
and chairpersons of each school, college, and department. At the low management level, all
program and technical coordinators are listed with a value of 3.

Table 2 reports on the characteristics examined. In total the sample includes 54 candidates. The
table indicate that on average, women have______ levels of education than the men. This pattern
can be attributed to ______. Also, the share of candidates in the sample who_____.

Table 2 . Sample Composition

Female Male Candidates All

Candidates
Gender
Male 0.50
Female 0.50
University Category E.g., 0.78
Quota Regulated
Non-Regulated
Level of Education
Spec
MA
Ph.D
Administrative Experience
ACE
PRE
PUE

Source: weighted statistics. Table format adapted from Kreyenfeld et al. (2020)

METHODS

(Rephase this) This study uses fixed-effects panel regression models to estimate how fathers
change their time allocation after taking parental leave. In fixed-effect regressions, the individual-
specific mean of each variable is subtracted from its actual value in each period, which means
that the fixed-effect estimators are based solely on intra-individual change. Therefore, the
estimates of the relationship between parental leave and fathers’ time allocation are based on
differences in fathers’ average time use before and after taking parental leave.

Observations of fathers who do not take parental leave are used to control for time trends that
affect all fathers equally. Nonetheless, the generalizability of results should be regarded with
caution as the models can only estimate how uptake of leave affects those fathers that select into
parental leave. (Bünning, 2015).

DATA ANALYSIS

(Rephrase this sentence) As a first stage, simple descriptive measures are stablished to calculate
the mean of ____. Group means are stablished, but also means for the individual professional
trajectory across time. The regression analysis consist of two steps. In a first step, I have stimated
a linear regression model in which the outcome variable is the individual change in ______
between 2017 and 2020. The independent values are the characteristics measured in 2019. In a
second step, we have estimated a fixed effect model in which we study how changes in the
respondents employment status (or in my case: admin experience) have affected the time they
spend with their children

Panel data (or longitudinal data) focuses on multiple individuals at multiple intervals. E.g.:
estimating the effect of education o access to administrative roles, with data across time and
individuals.

First using sequence analysis (abott, 1995), multichannel sequence analysis (Ganthier et al.,
2010) and cluster analysis to identify main patterns and compare groups’ educational-work
trajectories conceptualized as “process outcomes”. Then, we estimate the impact of gender. The
study does not offer a causal explanation of gender specific education-work trajectories in a
statistical sense. Instead it provides a longitudinal “thick description (Abbott, 1992) of gender
specific interplay of work-education life-course” (Aisenbrey and Fasang, 2017, p. 1452) in
different policy -influenced context, to explore and measure salient patterns of longitudinal
processes (Brzinsky-Fay and Kohler, 2010)

Then, a fixed effect regression (multivariate or MANOVA?) model is implemented to estimate

whether candidates professional mobility improve after completing a Ph.D degree. Second, this
study explores whether the length of the educational paths and the number and length of career
breaks matters to their professional mobility up the corporate hierarchy.

Independent Variable: The cause (Gender of candidates)

Dependent variables: The result (What is tested)

To begin, average occupational prestige was calculated across the entire trajectory for each
group, through the determination of mean averages.

TO DO: Download new version of SPSS and NVIVO from CORVINUS WEBSITE.

Sequence Analysis (From Aisenbrey and Fasang, 2017)

P. 1459

The sequential perspective enables us to study a complex set of life-course trajectories as they
take place. The first method used is “optimal matching (Abbott, 1995) to calculate the distance
between two sequences as “the cost” of turning one sequence into another (macIndoe and Abbott,
2004). This alignment is performed with three transformation operations: substitution of one state
with another and insertion or deletion of states along the sequence. Substitution, insertion and
deletion are each assigned a cost by the researcher. Distance between a pair of sequences is
calculated as the minimum possible cost of turning one sequence into the other.”

P. 1460

We align the sequences using multichannel optimal matching with substitution costs derived
from transition rates between two states (Gabadinho, Ritschard, and Studer, 2011). The cost
specification is not subject to arbitrary decisions by the researchers but is derived from the data.
The underlying rationale is that substituting states between which people transition frequently
should be “cheaper,” and thus produce less distance, than substituting states between which
transtition occur very rarely.

E.g., Two-dimensional work-education sequence of persons F1 and M1

Educ. Level Spec. MA PhD

F1 (Female 1) [ACE] [ACE] [PRE] [ACE] [PRE] [PUE]
M1 (Male 1) [ACE] [PRE] [PUE] [ACE] [PRE] [PUE] -
The row for person F1 show a sequence in which a person accumulates experience in the
academic sector during the entire example educational trajectory, but only acquires experience in
the public sector after reaching a doctoral level of education.

RESULTS

Descriptive results

Table # Education Trajectory

Male Candidates 29 1986 2001

No BA Spec. MA Ph.D 30 1981 1997
1 1968 1990 31 1989 2005
2 1980 2008 32 1985 2011
3 1975 1992 33 1986 2012
4 1972 1998 34 1979 1997
5 1983 2011 35 1981 2003
6 1966 1985 36 1993 2011
7 1990 2007 37 1968 1986
8 1977 1994 38 1987 2005
9 1978 1986 39 1997 2016
10 1993 2007 40 1980 1996
11 1989 1999 41 1989 1995
12 1975 1989 Female Candidates
13 1983 2018 1 1975 2006
14 1997 2010 2 1988 2018
15 1986 2010 3 1970 2003
16 1994 2003 *
17 1975 1990 4 1986 2010
18 1979 2005 5 1979 2014
19 1977 2003 *
20 1978 2010 6 1996 2007
21 1978 1999 *
7 1980 2006
22 1991 1999
8 1979 2007
23 1976 2005
9 1975 2002
24 1974 2013
10 1978 2014
25 1995 2006
11 1980 1993
26 1982 2004
12 1987 2003
27 1978 1999
13 1987 2016
28 1983 1995

Average number of years invested in their education:

M: 787/41= 19.1 years
F: 329/13= 25.3 years
Women invest on avergare 6 more years than men in completing their education but lets examine
those values in terms of analogous academic levels
Average number of years invested in their graduate education (by levels):
MA PhD
M 353/20= 17.6 years 397/19= 20.8 years
W 55/3= 18.3 years 274/10= 27.4 years

Figure # displays _____. In line with prior findings from ___, we find that ____. The findings
also reveal_____.

Figure #. Predicted differences in transition times between academic degree and first
administrative position (to show the results of the regression)

Multivariate Analysis

The results of the fixed-effects regression models (see Table #) support _____

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Notes

1.

REFERENCES

Aisenbrey, Y., and Fasang, A. E. (2017, March). The interplay of work and family trajectories
over the life course: Germany and the United States in comparison. American Journal of
Sociology, 122 (5), 14448-1484.
Bünning, M. (2015). What happens after the ‘daddy months’? Fathers’ involvement in paid work,
childcare, and housework after taking parental leave in Germany. European Sociological
Review,31 (6), 738-738. https://doi.org./10.1093/esr/jcv072.

Fasang, A. E., and Vargha, L. (2020, October 12-13). Gender inequality from a life course
perspective. Addressed at the Institute of Sociology and Communication Sciences,
Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary.

International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED, 2011). UNESCO Institute for

Statistics. http://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/documents/international-standard-
classification-of-education-isced-2011-en.pdf

Kreyenfeld, M., & Zinn, S. et al. (2020). Coronavirus & care: How the coronavirus crisis affected
father’s involvement in Germany (No. 1096). SOEP papers on Multidisciplinary Panel
Data Research.

Ordinance No. 1569. 1998 (Issued by the Colombian National Government on 5 August 1998),
Santafé de Bogotá, Colombia.
https://www.funcionpublica.gov.co/eva/gestornormativo/norma_pdf.php?i=1244 Last access:
23.01.2021
Settersten, R. A. (2020). Advances in life course research.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2020.100360