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Female enrolment in higher education has tripled globally between 1995 and 2018. However, recent research has provided evidence that the gender gap in higher education has declined very little in recent decades and closely matches the continued gender inequality in the labour market.

Furthermore, the ‘equal access’ to an academic education and career that women have enjoyed for the past years has not thus far led to ‘equal outcome’ in terms of leadership and academic positions, pay, research and publications in a higher education setting, according to a new report.

The outcome gender gap is also related to broader conditions of employment and labour – part-time vs full-time, permanent vs temporary contracts, etc – says the report Women in Higher Education: Has the female advantage put an end to gender inequalities?, published by the UNESCO International Institute for Higher Education in Latin America and the Caribbean (IESALC) on this year’s International Women’s Day.

The report documents that “there is a dearth of women at the top” and “among academic teachers and researchers”. Women are over-represented among teaching staff at lower educational levels, but their presence drops in tertiary education. In 2018, 43% of teachers in tertiary education were women compared to 66% and 54% in primary and secondary education, respectively. In 2020, just 30% of the world’s university researchers were women.

Only a few are at the top: just 18% of public universities in Latin America have women rectors. According to the European University Association, 15% of rectors of member universities across 48 countries are female, compared to 85% male. Twenty countries do not have any female rectors.

The increased participation of women in educational systems has also not translated “clearly or consistently” into labour market success or higher socio-economic status, the report says.

This is in part due to broader economic, social and political factors, including the disproportionate concentration of men or women in some educational fields or occupational sectors, “with women often ending up in less lucrative jobs of income and status”.

For example, there is a “heavy under-representation” of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Globally, fewer than a quarter of STEM students are female.

Even within the OECD countries, in 2017 just 20% of new enrolments in tertiary computer science programmes and about 18% of those starting engineering were female. Only about 30% of new enrolments in bachelor degrees in STEM fields were women. Naturally, there is also under-representation of female researchers in these areas, but the percentage of women in tertiary education teaching has increased in all regions, with the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa, where it decreased from 26% to 24%.

Women’s choice of studies is often still influenced by cultural barriers, such as the perception of STEM as a male discipline. In contrast, education, health, arts, humanities and social sciences tend to see an over-representation of women, the report says. Moreover, women’s opportunities to work in the latter are likely to be better, given that the same gender stereotypes operate in the labour market.

Women’s disadvantages persist

Male students continue to choose higher-paying degrees and receive higher earnings after graduation than women, according to the report. In the United States, 57% of higher education students are women, but women’s unadjusted average earnings are 78% of those of men.

The report points out that the choice of degrees and fields of study explain between 15% and 25% of the male-female earning gap among higher education graduates. Other factors are child caring-related career breaks and other forms of unpaid housework.

Men also dominate in higher education posts. In 2018 women represented 43% of teachers in tertiary education. The lowest share of female teachers in tertiary education is in Sub-Saharan Africa, with a slightly decreasing trend between 1995 and 2018, while all other regions have seen an increase.

Women are still under-represented in senior faculty and higher education decision-making bodies in many countries. This fact is not explained only by women’s history of lower access to education, but “it is also often a sign of institutional cultures that are neither inclusive nor geared towards broader social and cultural change for greater gender equality … conventional faculty recruitment processes that reward linear, full-time, uninterrupted academic trajectories contribute to women’s under-representation in senior academic positions”, the report says.

There are some signs, however, that women are making progress. For example, the number of top universities that are led by women is increasing but still account for less than one fifth of leading institutions.

Much more needs to be done. The report’s recommendations to level the playing field place the fight against stereotypes above policy interventions. The latter include quotas in tertiary education for students belonging to vulnerable groups, expansion of scholarships and cash transfers, as well as free access to primary education, among others.

Higher education institutions are also encouraged to promote the appointment of women in senior positions and to promote their careers.

“Just as higher education institutions have diversity and inclusion access policies, they should have similar policies for women’s full professional participation in higher education. This would indicate that the institution is an equal opportunity employer, and that it encourages the academic development of women,” the report says.

The report goes on to recommend to higher education institutions that they serve as the platform where women are encouraged to become leaders and where increased female leadership is highly valued.

“Women need to be influencing the agenda if they want to overcome inequalities,” was the observation of Dr Woohyang Chloe Sim, lecturer at Waseda University in Japan and an educational specialist on the Arab world, about the report.

The UNESCO-IESALC report also proposes that universities have programmes to help students make informed choices, free of gender bias, about their future fields of study and career, and to develop strategies to enhance female participation in traditionally male-dominated careers, including career orientation “to deconstruct misconstrued images of STEM and their biased connection to gender stereotypes”.

Ann Therese Ndong-Jatta, director of UNESCO’s Bureau of Education in Africa, said that in Africa women are still seen as second-class citizens. More in-depth studies were needed on why the inequality and what can be done to correct the situation, for example by focusing on social conceptions that deter women from entering higher education in general and STEM areas in particular, she said.

She added that most African countries have national and institutional policies that favour female enrolment in higher education, but that “these are implemented only where there is financial aid” which belies the fact that a low percentage of the budget in African countries goes to higher education due to cultural and socio-economic factors.

According to UNESCO’s policy analyst, Daniele Vieira, to increase the small numbers of women in leadership positions, “women mentors” are needed. They must help women develop their communications skills. In Vieira’s view, “it would be important to promote women to lead since primary education”.

Dr Rekha Pappu, professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, believes that the increased participation of women in South Asia is “phenomenal” in some countries.

In 10 of them, the enrolment rate of women in higher education is 54%, but it is extremely poor in other countries such as Afghanistan (5%) and Pakistan (8.7%). Plus, there is a huge under-representation in higher education from people with marginalised backgrounds, adds Pappu.

However, she underlined that, though in her region participation of women in higher education has increased in general, their representation in the STEM fields is less and they are vastly under-represented in managerial positions.

Furthermore, there is a negative relationship between employment and education. She also remarked that, though there is a growing acceptance of women in higher education, further progress requires the availability of scholarships and cultural reforms such as the recognition of women in higher education in society and academia and to change the perception that entering higher education is not feminine.

She cautioned that budgetary cuts and privatisation of higher education may have a negative impact on the completion rate and the quality of students.

José Quinteiro, UNESCO-IESALC programme coordinator for the Latin American and Caribbean region, identified “enormous obstacles in pursuing the continued progress of gender parity in higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean”.

“There is a heavy legacy we must defeat but, though ‘machismo’ still persists, cultural values are changing and women are being seen as more equal to men,” Quinteiro said.  

Maria Elena Hurtado, Writer. 

This article was originally published on University World News. 
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.