Author (Your Name)

Sofia M. OliveiraFollow

Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Honors Thesis (Colby Access Only)

Department

Colby College. Economics Dept.

Advisor(s)

Dave Findlay

Second Advisor

Yang Fan

Third Advisor

n/a

Abstract

Despite the Passage of Title IX in 1972, women remain underrepresented in head coaching positions in women’s college soccer in the United States. This study analyzes the determinants of the hiring of female head coaches in NCAA college women’s soccer. I collected all possible seasons of data (1967-2019) for every school that has a women’s soccer program (n=1039 schools) and analyze the likelihood of a female head coach being hired. The results of logistic regression analysis indicate that female coaches are less likely to be hired following strong team performance supporting the glass cliff theory. Further, gender of the previous coach and gender of the athletic director are both significant predictors of whether female head coaches are hired at any point in time and the results for the year variable also revealed that female hires were less likely to occur later in the sample period. However, year is the only significant predictor of whether female head coaches are hired conditional on a hire occurring.

Keywords

women's soccer, hiring decision, collegiate sports, women in leadership, head coach positions, athletic director

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