ABSTRACT
This chapter explores issues of gender inequality in the knowledge economy.Though the definition of “knowledge economy”may vary significantly and is itself gendered (Walby 2011), the increasingly blurred lines separating private firms and universities (Kleinman andVallas 2001) call for expanding the analytical perspective. In our analysis we thus adopt a broad definition of “knowledge economy” that includes science-intensive industries, such as information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology (Moore et al. 2011: 510), as well as traditional knowledge producing organizations in the academic and non-profit research sectors. Because U.S. for-profit firms employ 59% of workers whose highest degree is in science and engineering (NSF 2012), we feel it is critical to examine gender inequality in for-profit settings as well as in academia where it is most often studied.The knowledge economy is increasingly central to comprehending broad social processes underway in science and technology, and it thus also holds an important key to understanding gender dynamics. Within science, new general patterns of work would seem to favor the entrance of women
into the knowledge economy. These include changes that have expanded opportunities and increased the number of locations for work in science: industry jobs are valued by young scientists over academic ones (Smith-Doerr 2005,Vallas and Kleinman 2007), new scientific posts are created, like the proliferation of postdoctoral positions (for example, Frehill and Lee 2013), and new forms of organization, such as flatter network forms (for example, Powell 1990,DiMaggio 2001), flourish. One might expect that women would do well in this new knowledge economy. In the uncertain global economy, traditionally masculine blue-collar manufacturing jobs have shifted from affluent countries to poor countries.Thus, many men are doing worse than their fathers, especially men without advanced education to enter the knowledge economy in the first world. At the same time, women in the U.S. are earning degrees at higher rates than men at all levels and in many fields. An expanding knowledge economy would suggest that we are well placed for entering a new,more equal era for women in science. Indeed,while women
in the natural sciences and engineering still face formidable barriers, evidence amassed in the past three decades in the U.S. seems to point to several positive and dramatic changes.The rise in women’s overall education and labor market participation (for example, Coontz 2011), the closing of degree attainment gaps by gender in most scientific fields (for example, NSF 2011), and the introduction of new flexible work patterns (for example, Smith 2001) all suggest that the knowledge economy has created new possibilities for women and men to create and work in more equitable and open contexts. In this chapter, we seek to evaluate the processes of gender (in)equality in the knowledge
economy. In what ways have women benefited from the rise of the new industrial sector? How have efforts for challenging gender inequality in science and technology been stymied or reversed?While growing research on the intersection of gender and other social identities (race, ethnicity, and nationality) informs our understanding of women in the knowledge economy, here we take a new approach by focusing on collaboration. Not only is collaboration burgeoning in the academy (as evidenced by increasing co-authorship patterns, for example,Wuchty et al. 2007), it also provides the foundation for new knowledge industries (Powell et al. 1996, Powell and Snellman 2004). Collaboration, as a work pattern characteristic of the knowledge economy, provides a potentially interesting social location and process in which to observe gender relations at the intersection of individual efforts and organizational contexts. If collaboration is a key form of work, how is collaboration related to longstanding problems like gender inequality in science? The collaborative model of science contrasts with the traditional model of a single principal investigator (PI) who focuses on gaining fame for being the first to discover or invent something (Merton 1973). In this chapter we explore both the benefits and disadvantages of collaboration for women.
