Australian Universities – Where are the Women?

Abstract

There is increasing debate about the shape of the workforce in Australian universities. While a number of reports deal with staffing issues, these reports never disaggregate the workforce by sex (despite women forming 54 per cent of employees), and focus on academic staff. This paper brings together a range of data sources principally from Australian government departments and the superannuation fund Unisuper to tell the story of women’s participation in university employment. The data reveals on-going horizontal and vertical segregation. Women are the majority of the lower grades of the academic workforce and in less secure employment. Two-thirds of general staff are women but, like academic women, few reach senior positions. This picture is important to investigate at a time when pressures on the university sector include continued funding reductions, forecast declines in international students and pressure to increase domestic student numbers combine with an ageing academic workforce.