Let's talk FACTS

Reinventing gender in higher education

In her keynote speech at the 5th European Conference on Gender Equality in Higher Education in Berlin, Susanne Baer claimed ‘numbers matter’. This was in regards to numbers of undergraduate students, particularly in science degrees. However, Baer went on saying that what matters even more was quality: ‘more women are needed in top positions in higher education, science, technology and engineering and more female participation in higher education decision‐making processes.’ (Blättel-Mink, 2007).

All around the globe, women form a high proportion of students. An article by Rebecca Ratcliffe in The Guardian in 2013 was telling us that in ‘2010-11, there were more female (55%) than male fulltime undergraduates (45%) enrolled at university’, a trend that has been increasing ever since. (Ratcliffe, The Guardian, 2013)

‘This meant that […] women were a third more likely to start a degree than their male counterparts.’ (Ratcliffe, The Guardian, 2013)

Despite being an ever-growing group within the academic world, women are significantly under-represented in the academic leadership positions, as full-professor or higher. To set things in perspective, in the USA, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) conducted a survey in 2005/06, which revealed that in a country where discrimination against gender in education is illegal, women are still struggling to fill any positions of leadership. (West and Curtis, 2006).

The survey also highlighted that, despite the rise in the number of women completing PhDs (in 2004, more than 50% of the terminal degrees were awarded to women), only 31% held full-time tenured positions and even worse, 25% in doctorate granting institutions.

Another study, in 2006, tells us that 23% of college presidents were women; however, they were most likely to be presidents of a community college (29%) and least likely to be presidents of a doctorate granting institutions (13.8%). (Walker, 2007)

Crossing the pond, UK universities are making slow progress on equality too, the number of female professors being less than 25%, whilst in the European Union, the average number of women professors is 14%. According to Ozlem Özkanlı , ‘Norway and Denmark, countries with a long history of egalitarian legislation, are below the mean’. (Özkanlı, 2006).

More of the same in Australia where an average of 24% are associate professors and 17% full professors according to 2005 statistics. In South Africa, while 41% of academic positions were occupied by women, only 26 % held managerial positions, and only 17% were professors. (Emerald Group Publishing)

What was surprising was seeing Turkey’s data which reveals a much higher proportion, where females form an average of 40% of the academic workforce, of which 27% are full professors and 31% associate professors. Unlike many European countries, Turkey has little specific anti-discrimination legislation, although Atatürk gave women equal rights in the constitution (Özlanlı and White, 2008).

‘Interestingly, the proportion of women in senior positions appears to increase the more the organization is oriented to research or graduate studies, although very few women are employed as deans or rectors .’ (Özkanlı, 2006).

When talking about money, no surprise here either! According to the AAUP survey, academic women’s salaries fall behind those of men (even when women were on the same rank as their male colleagues). (Priola, 2004)

Catalyst tells us that ‘in 2019, women academics earned, on average, 15.1% less than their male counterparts in the United Kingdom.’ (Catalyst)

'In the UK, a survey in 2002-03 showed that women's pay could lag behind that of men by as much as £5,000.' (Priola, 2004).

All this data emphasizes one of the main reasons why this platform has been created – to challenge inequality. Taking examples around the globe, we can start to pinpoint on reasons for the pay gap and lack of leadership positions among the women academics.

There is no better time than now to discuss these realities and start challenging them. Let’s do it together!