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Many studies suggest that women scientists aspiring to careers in academe face roadblocks, including bias -- implicit or overt -- in hiring. But a new study is throwing a curveball into the literature, suggesting that women candidates are favored 2 to 1 over men for tenure-track positions in the science, technology, engineering and math fields. Could it be that STEM gender diversity and bias awareness efforts are working, or even creating a preference for female candidates -- or is something more nuanced going on? Experts say it’s probably both.

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But the pair’s new experimental paper -- also in PNAS -- is an effective takedown of that last assumed bias: hiring, especially in math-intensive disciplines. They argue that past studies of gender bias in STEM hiring don’t focus on faculty positions, where there isn’t really a problem.

“Although the point of entry into the professoriate is just one step in female faculty’s journey at which gender bias can occur, it is an extremely important one,” the paper says. “We hope that the discovery of an overall 2 to 1 preference for hiring women over otherwise identical men will help counter self-handicapping and opting out by talented women at the point of entry to the STEM professoriate, and suggest that female underrepresentation can be addressed in part by increasing the number of women applying for tenure-track positions.”