Though women earn almost half of the PhDs in geoscience, they only hold 10 percent of the tenured faculty positions in this field. A recent paper published in Nature Geoscience takes a look at the career pipeline that feeds researchers into these positions, finding that women receive fewer excellent recommendation letters than their male colleagues. This is likely to be one of the factors holding women back at this critical time in their careers.

Under-representation of women in STEM disciplines is well documented, and the disparity tends to increase in the years between postdoctoral positions and faculty positions. Previous research on this phenomenon has focused on everything from implicit bias to historical, social, and institutional factors.

This most recent study focused on the role of recommendation letters, which are an important part of academic advancement. They often help labs and institutions determine if the “fit” is right for an applicant. Previous studies have shown that there is evidence of qualitative differences in recommendation letters for men versus women, but this new study focuses specifically on the issue of overall “tone” in the recommendations.