Academic women and Higher Education: some progress but a long way to go

By Dr. Jacqueline Baxter, Editor in Chief, Management in Education

Academia: a world of research and innovation, a field characterised by its drive to push the boundaries of knowledge. Yet in spite of this, in terms of female representation at all levels of the sector, we still have a long way to go. Despite considerable progress over the last few decades, in academia, women continue to face barriers to selection, promotion, recognition in work. In addition to this, universities have a poor record in terms of gender pay gap and precarious working.

Rising up the ranks, or not….

The issues begin at degree level: The SHE report (2018) revealed that women are more likely than men to graduate at bachelor level, but less likely than men to continue to doctoral level. Doctoral education is a key element in the preparation of many future academic researchers, as well as producing research results, so it is concerning that less women actually undertake doctorates.  However, the good news is that within the past decade, there has been a 28% increase in England in the number of women accepted onto full-time undergraduate degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths), and in the last academic year women accounted for more than half of all STEM postgrads at UK universities. But although women make up the majority of undergraduates in our universities, just under half of academic staff are female, and once in academia, women face a number of barriers to their progression and success.

Precarious working

In terms of pay and contractual commitments, women researchers in the higher education sector were more likely than men to be employed under precarious working contracts with the respective shares in the EU being 8.1 % and 5.2 %. This pattern was found in two thirds of the countries examined in The SHE report (2018).

In terms of salary women, universities don’t do too well either, more than nine out of 10 British universities pay their average male employee more than they pay their average female employee. All government departments and almost two-thirds of local councils have pay gaps, but British universities reported a higher median pay gap, 13.7% on average, than the national average of 9.1% in 2018 (UCU, 2020). Research done by the Times Higher , in 2019 revealed that UK universities are making slow progress in their bid to close the gender pay gap, latest figures showing male employees’ advantage having widened even further at one in five institutions (UCU, 2020).

Women leaders in academia

Seniority is also an issue for women:  Research done in 2016 showed that Women academics held 41.3% of academic positions across the 28 countries of the European Union (EU-28) in 2016. (SHE, 2018).  They were a minority among senior academics in many European countries, including the Netherlands (18.7%), Germany (19.4%), France (21.9%), Switzerland (23.3%), Sweden (25.4%) and the United Kingdom (26.4%).(SHE , 2018).

The data also illustrates that success gets harder for women the further up they go :At senior levels, only a quarter of professors are women, and black women make up less than 2% of all female academic staff . The latest figures indicate that male professors continue to outnumber females by three to one , or 15, 700 to 5.700 in 2018-19. However the good news is that the number of female professors have increased by 1,200 in the five years since 2014-5 and the number of males , by half that amount. (Guardian, 2020). This is partly due to initiatives such as the one at the University of Leicester, which aims to increase the number of female professors by 1.5% each year-looking to have 30% of professorships held by women by the end of 2020.

Women at the top

When it comes to women in senior leadership positions, the proportion of female vice-chancellors has risen – from 22% in 2016 to 29% in 2018. Yet this is still far from representative- Only 34 of the top 200 universities in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings are run by women (HESA, 2020). One way of ensuring equality permeates through all levels of a university is by enhancing the diversity of governing bodies, including a fair balance between male and female board members. UK universities have made good headway in this area, with 55% of universities having gender-balanced boards comprising 40-60% women. The number of female chairs is also up from just 19% in 2016 to 27% in 2018 (HESA, 2020)

As a female journal editor I am aware, that for decades, studies have confirmed a disproportion in the gender composition of journal editorial boards across a large number of specialties. Despite an upward trend in the number of women holding a seat at the table, the rate of increase has been slow, and the proportions generally are not reflective of the representation of women in their respective specialties. Overall, research carried out in 2016 into females on the boards of management journals,  indicated that the prospects of editorial board membership improve for women when editors are high‐performing, professionally young or female.(Metz, Harzing, & Zyphur, 2016).

Yet the result of having equal representation in every area of higher education is proven to bring many advantages: It provides a renewed focus on the wellbeing of scholars and students in universities and other academic institutions. Improved equality, diversity and inclusion builds community by improving the sense of belonging for all that engage with HE, which in turn, enhances their commitment and performance. Finally, by fully embracing and valuing diversity, universities can ensure their long-term relevance in a rapidly evolving world (LERU, 2019).

References

Adams, R (2020) Fewer than 1% of UK university professors are black , figures show. (online at Guardian Newspaper, 270220 : accessed 010320 at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/27/fewer-than-1-of-uk-university-professors-are-black-figures-show.

European Commission, “Table 6.1: Proportion (%) of Women Among Academic Staff, by Grade and Total, 2016,” She Figures 2018 [1](2019): p. 118.

HESA , (2020) https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff

LERU (2019) Equality , diversity and inclusion at universities : the power of a systemic approach : https://www.leru.org/files/LERU-EDI-paper_final.pdf: accessed: 060320

Metz, I., Harzing, A. W., & Zyphur, M. J. (2016). Of journal editors and editorial boards: who are the trailblazers in increasing editorial board gender equality? British Journal of Management, 27(4), 712-726.

UCU. (2020). Gender pay gap Retrieved 280220, 2020, from https://www.ucu.org.uk/genderpay

[1] Most of the data for the She Figures indicators originate from Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the EU), which provides sex disaggregated data on education, research and development, professional earnings and scientific employment. Data on education, research and the labour market for countries outside the EU, when not available in Eurostat, were compiled from web-sites including the International Labour Organization (ILO), the OECD and the UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS). The Statistical Correspondents enrich this picture, by collecting primary data (broken down by sex) on senior academic staff, the heads of universities, funding applicants and beneficiaries, as well as the membership of boards of national research organisations.

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