Positive Action Towards Gender Equality: Evidence from the Athena SWAN Charter in UK Medical Schools

Ian Gregory‐Smith
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Ian Gregory-Smith ()

British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2018, vol. 56, issue 3, 463-483

Abstract: This article provides evidence on the effectiveness of voluntary positive action in addressing inequality between female and male careers. The setting is UK medical schools where two natural experiments are exploited. The first is the introduction of the Athena SWAN charter in 2005, whereby 12 UK universities signed up to the principles of the charter. The second is the announcement in 2011 by the National Institute for Health Research to only shortlist medical schools with a ‘silver’ Athena SWAN award for certain research grants. This second change potentially impacts schools that are further away from silver status more than those that were already close in 2011. While there is a marked improvement of women succeeding in medical schools between 2004 and 2013, early Athena SWAN adopters have not increased female participation by more than other schools whose institution signed up later. In addition, tying funding to Athena SWAN silver status has yet to have an impact on female careers, although medical schools have invested in efforts to achieve silver status. Together, these results emphasize the challenges associated with addressing gender equality through voluntary self‐regulation.

Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12252

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:brjirl:v:56:y:2018:i:3:p:463-483

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0007-1080

Access Statistics for this article

British Journal of Industrial Relations is currently edited by Edmund Heery

More articles in British Journal of Industrial Relations from London School of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().