The leaky pipeline in the Swiss university system: identifying gender barriers in postgraduate education and networks using longitudinal data

Recent empirical studies provide evidence in favour of an equalization of male and female educational chances on the Master's level. This paper tackles the question whether gender inequalities develop after the completion of a Master's degree while starting an academic career. Using individual data from the Swiss Higher Education Information System we find that over the last decades the doctoral and habilitation rates for women are nearly always lower than the rates for men. With panel data on doctoral graduates in 2002 (drawn from the Swiss Graduate Survey 2003 and 2007) we identify the poorer integration of female emerging researchers in international academic networks and the related differences in social capital as a major cause for gender specific drop-out rates. Reprinted by permission of Seismo Press