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Women researchers in postdoc career stages still do not participate to the same extent in international academic mobility as men do. As a novel approach to better understand gender inequalities in international academic mobility, we investigate the structure of research collaborations and bring into focus the host researchers. Our central theoretical tool is the distinction between compositional and behavioral homophily. Using quantitative data from two German Humboldt Foundation programs sponsoring collaborations between international researchers and academic hosts in Germany, we ask (a) to what extent are gender-homophilous research collaborations caused by compositional or behavioral homophily; (b) what factors influence gender-based homophily; and (c) whether men or women tend more towards gender-homophilous collaborations. We detected behavioral homophily in research collaborations mainly when taking the potential pool of eligible women researchers as the reference group. The results on influencing factors are ambiguous and need further investigation. Furthermore, our results show that men tended more towards gender-homophilous collaborations than women. Our results suggest that gender inequalities in international academic mobility are linked to behavioral homophily and that exploring the role of host researchers is crucial to understanding—and overcoming—the under-representation of women in international academic mobility.

The Women Professors Program, which was initiated in Germany in 2008, aims to increase the proportion of women professors and to promote structural change in favour of gender equality at higher education institutions (HEIs). It is one of the central gender equality policies in higher education in Germany. The present study evaluates the impact of the program by estimating its causal effects on the proportion of women professors. By adopting a quasi-experimental approach and using a unique dataset—a long term census of German HEIs—the study proves that the proportion of women professors increased more than would have been expected in the absence of the program. Although the evaluation includes preliminary estimates of mechanisms driving the described impacts, the integration of context factors and mechanisms into the assessment of the impact of gender equality policies remains a desideratum. The study shows that the program is working, and it contributes to redressing the lack of impact studies on gender equality in science and research.