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The different worlds of academia: a horizontal analysis of gender equality in Swedish higher education

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Abstract

Women are underrepresented in advanced positions in higher education in Europe. This study takes a horizontal perspective and focuses on the relationship between gender and discipline in order to combine research on gender in higher education with theories of disciplinary differences in academic cultures. The study points out substantial differences between disciplines in gender composition, specifically, the probability of a person leaving academia after earning a doctor’s degree and various attitudes towards gender equality work. Our approach, which is based on quantitative longitudinal as well as qualitative research methods, has yielded a more complex and contradictory picture of gender equality in higher education than have vertical cross-sectional studies.

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Notes

  1. The remaining 78 persons cannot be found on the Swedish labour market. This means that they are either deceased or work abroad. The majority of these individuals are likely to be on post-doc positions abroad.

  2. All mean values (X) in this study are related to answers on a scale from 1 to 6, where 1 is disagree and 6 is fully agree.

  3. In parenthesis, the sex of interviewee (m or w), if the discipline is male-predominated, mixed or female-predominated (male, female or mix), and if the discipline is in the area of humanities (hum), social sciences (soc) or natural science and medicine (nat/med) appear.

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Acknowledgments

This study was made possible through a grant from the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linnaeus University, 351 95, Växjö, Sweden

    Charlotte Silander & Leif Lindberg

  2. Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden

    Ulrika Haake

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  1. Charlotte Silander
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  2. Ulrika Haake
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  3. Leif Lindberg
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Correspondence to Charlotte Silander.

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Silander, C., Haake, U. & Lindberg, L. The different worlds of academia: a horizontal analysis of gender equality in Swedish higher education. High Educ 66, 173–188 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9597-1

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