The Rosalind Franklin Fellowship is an initiative by the University of Groningen to promote the advancement of talented female researchers. Aimed to redress gender imbalances within academia, the fellowship awards tenure-track positions leading to a professorship to outstanding academics. But what is the rationale for such programmes? Swarnodeep Homroy, assistant professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, studies the economics of gender balance in the labour market. His past research has found that female representation on company boards is in the firm’s best interest, as it increases performance.

Q. What does your research say about gender balance in academia and industry?

A. My current and ongoing research is about the gender differences in the labour market. More specifically, me and my collaborators focus on the challenges that disadvantage women in the leadership track. What seems to emerge very clearly from the data is that the reason we see indefensibly few female leaders is not because of some hiring bias at the top level. It is because women are disadvantaged very early in the careers that sometimes have a permanent scarring effect. These bias stems from several factors – the obvious disadvantage of child rearing, being nudged into jobs with more predictable working hours, as well as lack of role-models to emulate.

Q. Why is gender balance important for staffing?

A. There is of course an argument to be made from the perspective of equity and fairness. But in our recent research we find that firms also benefit from having women in key decision-making roles. Psychologists and neuroscientists have reported overwhelming evidence to show that the workings of the male and the female minds are quite similar, and that leadership style is not gendered. Therefore, it seems that the benefits accrue from replacing mediocre men with talented women who have so far been excluded from leadership roles.

Q. What are the major impediments for carer progression of women?

A. I touched upon some of these issues before. Broadly speaking there are two major impediments. First, there is an early career disadvantage due to the family formation decisions, the burden of which fall disproportionately on the women. In all honesty, the maternity provisions in most countries are nowhere near enough to offset the disadvantage. Second, there is a lack of role model and mentoring. This is particularly problematic because if young women see no role model in an area, they tend to stop investing in those skills. And the very few who do, may find it hard to get the kind of mentoring that they need to overcome the challenges of a still very masculine work culture.

Q. Can programmes such as the Rosalind Franklin Fellowships help in this?

A. I think so, yes. The Rosalind Franklin Fellowships addresses the second point I mentioned before. It aims to correct the abysmally low proportion of female professors. This will create the role-models for the future generation of bright female academics. I was looking at the Rosalind Franklin cohorts and a very large fraction of the earlier cohorts have already been appointed as Full Professors. But it will be a shame to have these smart female professors and not to appoint them in leadership roles within the faculties and the university at large. That’s the next big challenge.

For more information about the Rosalind Franklin Fellowships, see here.