The obvious way to check is to repeat the experiment and see if the statistics hold up or whether they are just noise. Such a repeat failed to reproduce any claim of discrimination. So either you can conclude that something has radically changed or that the original conclusion was flawed.

On the basis of the evidence provided, there is no way of telling which is the case.

And once again let me reiterate that I think it highly likely that sex discrimination exists in many places including particle physics: my point is only that those who “prove” it by such dubious means are actually doing more harm than good in making the case.

In such situations, the candidate’s “parental lineage” becomes a more important factor than the candidates actual abilities in terms of research and teaching. The reasons such tendencies are unhealthy should be obvious to anyone who wants to maintain a high-quality research and teaching institution.

In Spain, this is known as the “endogamy problem” (endogamy = marriage within the tribe or extended family). It occurs because, as I understand it, university hiring committees usually include several prominent citizens from the local city, and these people will tend to favor applicants who are locals over those from other regions (or foreigners). The result is that people who aren’t from that locality can sometimes have a harder time getting faculty or equivalent positions.

(This isn’t nepotism in the strict sense — the people being favored are not necessarily directly related to the hiring committee; they’re just “locals”.)

Notable anecdotal stories of this process include faculty members who load the short list with obvious non-starters in order to make their favored candidate look better, as well as “job listings” that, after inquiry, turn out to be in-house promotions of junior members that have to be presented to the public as “job searches”.

Does this really produce the best scientific research teams, whether big or small? In other words, “why is nepotism bad”?

Nepotism is the showing of favoritism toward relatives and friends, based upon that relationship, rather than on an objective evaluation of ability or suitability. For instance, offering employment to a relative, despite the fact that there are others who are better qualified and willing to perform the job, would be considered nepotism. The word nepotism is from the Latin word ‘nepos’, meaning “nephew” or “grandchild”.

In such situations, the candidate’s “parental lineage” becomes a more important factor than the candidates actual abilities in terms of research and teaching. The reasons such tendencies are unhealthy should be obvious to anyone who wants to maintain a high-quality research and teaching institution.

Right now, it should be noted, academics have a pretty cushy position – but imagine a situation in which external political considerations control all university activities – as was the case in Lysenko’s Soviet science “community”, and as was the case at all the German scientific institutions during the 1930s and 40s. The main external influence over science institutions in the U.S. today is the growth of secretive public-private relationships and the new emphasis on proprietary corporate research within all of the U.S. public universities. Extrapolate the trends of the past two decades forward 20 years, and what do you get?

This is why people are calling for more openness and transparency in all aspects of academic life – but especially in hiring and funding decisions.

Hmm… looks like countries with higher fractions of women physicists also have higher fractions in engineering. I’d say your “fairly obvious” explanation isn’t.

Except that we weren’t talking about undergraduate degrees, but rather the numbers further along in career progression. The figures that you report reflect the higher priority of STEM subjects in some countries. The more salient question is how these numbers translate into PhD students, postdocs and faculty positions in physics compared to engineering. Clearly, the relatively small difference between the fraction of female undergraduates studying physics in the UK (21%) and Spain (27%) is not sufficient to explain the much larger differences further down the pipe.

Precisely the conclusion at which I arrived after reading the paper. I really do not believe that her case is strong enough to make the claims that she makes, even if we accept all of her premises (some of which are dubious).

Is this actually true? (I should point out that I’ve heard a somewhat similar argument from a female Turkish friend about the roles of physics and engineering in Turkey — that is, Turkish men who might be interested in physics are encouraged to study engineering instead, on the grounds that they’ll be the ones supporting a family and so need a better-paying career — so I’m inclined to take the argument seriously. But I have this weird habit of wanting to look for actual evidence, so…)

Here are some numbers for the fraction of undergraduate physics degrees going to women in countries you’ve mentioned, for 2004:
US: 21%
UK: 21%
Italy: 36% [*]
Spain: 27%

According to your argument, we should expect lower female fractions in engineering in Italy and Spain (where engineering has higher “esteem”), and higher fractions for the US and UK.

Fraction of undergraduate degrees going to women in engineering:
US: 21%
UK: 16%
Italy: 28.%
Spain: 31%

Hmm… looks like countries with higher fractions of women physicists also have higher fractions in engineering. I’d say your “fairly obvious” explanation isn’t.

(Data mostly from the NSF’s “Science and Engineering Indicators 2008″ report, plus a few other reports found here and there.)

[*] This is actually the number for 1998; I haven’t been able to find any newer numbers for Italy. Tentatively, I would assume that the 2004 value is, if anything, slightly higher.