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Thursday, February 24, 2005

Study: The rising profile of women academics

1990/91 to 2002/03

Women have increased their presence among full-time university faculty during a period of shrinking public funding, rising enrolments and increasing tuition costs. The trend has been fuelled by the rising educational attainment of women generally, as well as a growing academic work force reaching retirement age that consists mainly of men.

The number of women full-time university teachers jumped by over 50% between 1990/91 and 2002/03, more than double the growth in women's full-time employment in general. By contrast, during the same period, the number of male full-time faculty declined by 14%, according to a new study.

As a result, close to 11,000 women were full-time faculty members of Canadian universities in the 2002/03 academic year and accounted for 30% of all full-time academics — a notable improvement from 20% a decade earlier.

The study, published in the online edition of Perspectives on Labour and Income, looks at the growth in the number of women teaching full-time at universities between 1990/91 and 2002/03, and examines changes in their representation by academic rank, tenure status and field of instruction, as well as academic credentials, age, and earnings.

Female faculty strengthened their presence in both traditional and non-traditional disciplines and made notable gains in tenure status and academic rank. Also, while their median salaries remain below those of their male colleagues, the gap generally narrows when rank and field of study are taken into account.

Women accounted for a significant share of new appointments during the study period. In 1990/91, 35% of new academic appointments were women; by 2002/03, this had risen somewhat to 39%.

Also, from 1990/91 to 2002/03, the proportion of full-time faculty positions held by women grew dramatically and steadily in all disciplines, including the non-traditional fields of engineering and the applied sciences (from 3% to 10%), and mathematics and the physical sciences (from 7% to 13%).

Moreover, the proportion of tenured staff who were women almost doubled to 26% in 2002/03 from only 14% in 1990/91. As for positions leading to tenure, 38% were held by women in 2002/03, up from 34% in 1990/91.

Having entered university in large numbers only relatively recently, female faculty members tended to be younger than their male colleagues, with a median age of 47 versus 51 for men (up from 44 and 48, respectively, in 1990/91). This age gap held true in all fields of instruction. The youngest women were in engineering and the applied sciences (median age of 42), and in mathematics and the physical sciences (43). The corresponding median ages of men in these fields were 46 and 49, respectively.

Although at successively higher ranks women continued to hold a declining portion of academic posts, their relative standing improved greatly during the 1990s. While only 8% of all full professors were women in 1990/91, this proportion had more than doubled to 17% by 2002/03. Similarly, in 1990/91, only one in five associate professors was female; 12 years later, this ratio had increased to one in three.

A higher proportion of women have also reached higher ranks. In 1990/91, only 15% of all women working full time held full professorships, while 35% held associate professorships. By 2002/03, 22% of women were full professors and 36% were associate professors, for a total of 58% in the upper echelons. While they have yet to reach the high concentration held by their male colleagues (nearly 80% of whom held the rank of full professor or associate professor that year) women's standing appears to be slowly improving.

In 2002/03, the median salary of female university teachers was some $13,000 lower than that of their male colleagues. Much of the difference can be attributed to women being disproportionately in the lower ranks. Indeed, when the median salaries of men and women of equal academic rank are considered, the difference narrows substantially — from $6,100 at the full professor level (where women earned 94% of men's salaries in 2002/03) to $2,600 (96%) at the assistant professor level.

As of 2002/03, one in four Canadian academics were men aged 55 and over. It is anticipated the majority of them will retire in the next decade. The growing pool of women with doctoral degrees should bode well for the future hiring and advancement of women in academia in the coming decade.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 3101.

The article "The rising profile of women academics" is available in the February 2005 online edition of Perspectives on Labour and Income, Vol. 6, no. 2 (75-001-XIE, $6/$52).

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Deborah Sussman (613-951-4226; deborah.sussman@statcan.gc.ca) or Lahouaria Yssaad (613-951-0627; lahouaria.yssaad@statcan.gc.ca), Labour and Household Surveys Analysis Division.



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