‘Concrete’ examples of the glass ceiling effect in academia – Career development of women in academia #S01A02
Co-author / editing by admin-FTW
Gender inequity has been a major dimension of inequity in higher education. Achieving gender equity in academia has been an ongoing struggle for a long time and while some progress has been made, the road to gender equity remains long. Data from the latest U-Multirank[1] edition confirmed that still today there are strong gender imbalances among males and females in academic careers[2]. While women in total count for half or more of bachelor’s (BA) and master’s (MA) students, their share is smaller among Ph.D. students (48%), academic staff (44%), and professors (28%) (the higher you climb the ladder). According to U-Multirank data, this pattern is very much the same among EU and non-EU institutions.
Barriers to Career Progression
You may have heard the term glass ceiling (see our Instagram, Facebook and Linkedin posts). The term refers to the artificial impediments and invisible barriers that militate against women’s access to top decision-making and managerial positions in an organization, whether public or private, and in whatever domain.
When it comes to academia, women do face greater difficulties than men in advancing to the top academic positions. At a European level, the presence of a glass ceiling effect for women academics was evident according to the glass ceiling index value of 2015.
A few reasons behind this phenomena include the persistence of gender stereotypes and biases about women’s skills and role in society ultimately leading to direct and indirect discrimination during their careers. And although prevalent in many academic fields, the consequences of bias and stereotypes are more pronounced in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.
Representation is key
“You can’t be what you can’t see”; representation is key. U-Multirank data showed that at institutions with a majority of graduates in STEM fields, women are underrepresented both at the student level and among academic staff. [3] Looking at permanent staff statistics, the share of women in junior and senior faculty positions falls from 40% and 26% in academia in general to only 28% and 19% in science and engineering. Leadership in STEM fields is also male-dominated, and men are not used to seeing many women around them. This lack of representation, which sometimes means being the only woman in the room, can exacerbate the feeling of isolation. It also exacerbates the lack of confidence, especially in leadership roles.
Stereotypical patterns of ‘male and female study subjects’
The U-Multirank subject rankings data suggest that differences between study subjects still follow stereotypical patterns of ‘male and female study subjects’. While women are still a minority in most of the science and engineering subjects, both among students and academic staff, subjects like nursing, social work, education and psychology are still strongly dominated by women. In these subjects, the majority of both students and academic staff are female. In social work for example, U-Multirank found only 7 out of almost 200 departments where men make up for more than half of the students. Furthermore, at 4 out of 5 departments the majority of academic staff is female.
When one hears phrases like ‘Women are more social’, and ‘men are more technically adept’ – one can understand that the choice of study courses is influenced by the social constructs of gender.
Being a woman carries different societal expectations (e.g., girls are not good at math or engineering), and that comes up throughout female scientists’ careers in terms of being disregarded or underestimated, and given different, more administrative or service tasks than male colleagues. These activities are associated with caring and include assisting students, administration of teaching, or organizing professional academic activities. Generally, these activities do not help advance a woman’s career in science.
Women’s journal publications – the ‘double-blind process’
Career development in academia depends to a great extent on the number of peer-reviewed journal publications. Research has shown that there are higher chances for women’s articles to get accepted when there is a double-blind process. That is when neither the author nor the reviewer knows who the other person is. Despite this, most journals still haven’t adopted this practice.
Implicit bias
Implicit bias also results in women typically receiving smaller research grants than men according to UN statistics. That might explain the findings from the U-Multirank data showing that women are particularly underrepresented in research intense universities [4]. Only 23% of professors are women in institutions with high or very high percentages of expenditures on research as opposed to 38% in institutions with a low share of research expenditures.
Career vs family
The idea of having a family and being able to do that well while pursuing a career as a scientist can be very worrisome for women due to the societal expectations which put the responsibility of raising children mainly on them. In some cases, especially for early-career researchers, women might even be asked to choose between science or children. Married women with young children in academia are 35% less likely to get a permanent academic position compared to married men with young children. As a result, the data of permanent academic staff show that 70% of men are married with children as opposed to only 44% of women.
Recommendations
Universities can help female scientists’ career progression in several ways. Below is a non-exhaustive list of potential solutions to break or even shake the glass ceiling.
Raising awareness regarding gender equity aspects in academia is a first step to reducing the gap. Universities should gather statistics for the gender representation in their faculties and share the statistics among the university staff. Raising awareness, especially in the leadership of universities is essential for change. KTH University in Sweden is a good example of a university actively trying to raise awareness on this topic. In particular, KTH decided to integrate gender equality and diversity as a compulsory part of all its educational programs, from undergraduate up to doctoral level.
Changing culture. Universities can start by changing the narrative and culture around career ambition for women at universities. This will be a win-win for female academics and universities.
Mentorship. Access to supportive mentors and role models is considered valuable by women in academia. Women in STEM who participated in a study, considered it valuable to have the ability to sit and talk about their experiences with other groups of women in similar contexts.
Ally-ship. The importance of having allies, from having someone in a meeting to reiterate or reinforce women’s contributions and mitigate being talked over or ignored, to calling out inappropriate language and comments, is valuable. The use of allies can help women to create a sense of safety and belonging. The ally does not have to be following the stereotype of being a woman. The majority groups (such as white men in STEM), can also be valuable supporters.
Closing remarks
A more equal representation in research has proven to have multiple benefits to the research outcomes. And research outcomes influence policies about health, city planning, economy, work environment, and so on, and therefore, our lives. The issue of gender equity is not a women’s problem but a societal one. It is up to each and every one of us to redefine the gender norms that inhibit progress toward equity and inclusion of women in STEM, academia, and beyond.
[1]U-Multirank is developed and implemented on the initiative of the European Commission by an independent consortium led by the Centre for Higher Education (CHE) in Germany, the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) from Leiden University, both in the Netherlands, as well as the Foundation for Knoweldge and Development (Fundación CYD) in Spain. The consortium is headed by Professors Dr. Frans van Vught of CHEPS and Dr. Frank Ziegele of the CHE.
[2]The underlying data are taken from the U-Multirank database and refer to the academic years 2018 or 2019. The analysis includes 900 institutions from more than 80 countries which provided comprehensive data on gender. This analysis is the first of a planned annual monitoring on gender in higher education.
[3]In November 2021, U-Multirank launched its analysis on gender balance. U-Multirank is developed and implemented on the initiative of the European Commission by an independent consortium led by the Centre for Higher Education (CHE) in Germany, the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) from Leiden University, both in the Netherlands, as well as the Foundation for Knoweldge and Development (Fundación CYD) in Spain. The consortium is headed by Professors Dr. Frans van Vught of CHEPS and Dr. Frank Ziegele of the CHE.
[4] U-Multirank recognised that although gender requires more than a binary classification of female and male, the data available for its analysis only looks at gender in a binary system and undertakes to improve this in future years. It notes that on the one hand, many institutions do not yet collect gender data in a more inclusive way, while on the other hand numbers are too small to allow for any disaggregation by additional variables
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