Women in Academia: Underrepresentation and Discrimination

Speakers 

● Ross Woods – Senior Manager Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality at Higher Education Authority 

● Tanusree Jain – Assistant Professor of Ethical Business course at the School of Business 

● Prof Clodagh Brook – Associate Vice Provost for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at TCD 

● Prof Pat O’Connor – Professor of Sociology and Social Policy, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick 

Abstract 

The gender gap is still a prominent issue in Academia, especially in STEM. Women, despite universities and government policies against discrimination, remain vastly under-represented in the ivory. The under-representation of women in senior academic positions is and continues to be, a prevalent trend within the higher education sector. 

Women remain hugely underrepresented in the senior levels of Irish universities despite policies aimed at promoting greater gender equality. They are also far more likely to earn less, with men accounting for the vast majority of best-paid posts in higher education. The figures are contained in a Higher Education Authority report which profiles the performance of third-level institutions in tackling gender gaps. Currently, four of the seven universities have at least 40 per cent female representation on AC (HEA 2020a)—the same as it was in 2018 (HEA 2019a). Across the EU men make up 78 per cent of heads of all HEIs (86 per cent of the heads of universities) and 76 per cent of those at full professorial level. 

More broadly, statistics also indicate that women still face many obstacles when it comes to career advancement in the public and private sectors. Figures by the Higher Education Authority show that women’s “chances” of accessing a professorship in Irish universities remain much lower than men’s (1:13 for women as compared to 1:5 for men). Assumptions that this simply reflects women’s maternity leave, caring activities, lack of ambition, etc. are difficult to sustain in the face of variation between different Irish universities in such chances: from 1:9 to 1:27 for women. (Article Multi-Level State Interventions and Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions: The Irish Case) 

There are also sharp differences in the proportion of women in senior academic grades across individual institutions. At the university level, NUI Galway for example had a low proportion of female professors. As of 31st December 2020, its Senior Lecturer pipeline has 46% of their Senior Lecturers women, 29% of the Personal Professors are women and 17.5 % of their Established Professor are women -giving an overall female professoriate of 23.7%. The best performers are DCU (31%) and TCD (31%) followed by Maynooth University (28%) and UL (28%).  

Women in academia, especially in male-dominated fields, are at a disadvantage.

Therefore this panel aims to discuss the underrepresentation and discrimination women face in academia and how to overcome these issues in Ireland.