Why are there so few female leaders in higher education

Abstract

A significant gender imbalance remains at executive management level within higher education despite a number of initiatives to increase the number of women in the leadership pipeline and ensure they are better prepared for these roles. This article presents findings from a recent study on the appointment of deputy and pro vice-chancellors in pre-1992 English universities that provide fresh insights into why this might be the case. These findings challenge the notion of women’s missing agency - characterized by a lack of confidence or ambition and a tendency to opt out of applying for the top jobs – as an explanation for their continued underrepresentation. Rather, they highlight the importance of three structural factors associated with the selection process: mobility and external career capital, conservatism, and homosociability. An approach of ‘fixing’ the women is therefore unlikely to be sufficient in redressing the current gender imbalance within university executive management teams.

Sustainable Development and Motivation Opportunities from the Perspective of Women in the Polish Science Sector in the Light of Statistical Data and Surveys

“…Their share in the total advancement structure was systematically decreasing as the academic hierarchy grew. On one hand, this supports the previous findings of researchers (Shepherd, 2017;Carr et al, 2019;Burgess et al, 2012) on gender inequality in academic career development of women and men, resulting mainly from barriers encountered by women, including organizational culture and deeply rooted value systems, as well as social and cultural standards of these units, which hinder the diversity of leadership in the area. On the other hand, this can also result from objective circumstances related to women's resignation from academic life due to starting a family and different prioritization of life goals, which was also signaled by the authors of research in this area, described in the introduction.…”

“…The authors postulate the repair of universities, not women, and point out that the growing resistance of women reflects their dissatisfaction with regard to taking up managerial positions by men. A similar opinion is shared by Shepherd (2017), who claims that a significant gender imbalance persists among the management of higher education institutions despite several initiatives aiming at increasing the number of women on managerial positions and ensuring that they are better prepared to fulfill these roles.…”

“…As a result, they are additionally subject to gender-related expectations regarding clothing, image or appearance. This prompts researchers (Shepherd, 2017;Morley, 2014) to seek the cause of such situation and create models that identify the sources of these disproportions, as well as to develop recommendations, the implementation of which will influence the decrease of the glass ceiling phenomenon.…”

“…As Siemieńska (2019) points out, there is no evidence of a greater presence of women in the research sector in countries where greater equality between women and men is suggested. Other authors (Blackburn, 2017;Kwak and Ramirez, 2018;Shepherd, 2017) also highlight that, despite many initiatives to promote equal treatment of women and men in this sector, barriers to women's careers development still exist. On the other hand, as pointed out by O'Connor (2015), the pressure on gender equality is supported by transnational structures, which are concerned about economic growth and which consider the failure to address gender inequality a serious constraint on that growth.…”

Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling: Leadership Practices of Women Leaders in Higher Education

“…A recent study conducted by Shepherd (2017) in respect of women leadership in higher education revealed that a massive amount of literature is available stressing on leadership but less is known about women academic leadership. Generally, it is believed that women's leadership based on traditionally feminine traits.…”