Advanced Education for Women: Women's upper education

Many individuals, institutions, and national governments readily subscribe today to the notion that women are fundamental social actors and that they should be integrated fairly into all aspects of society. Efforts to achieve gender equality in multiple arenas represent some of the most progressive steps in contemporary society, yet these efforts are still few and many of them are weak. Despite the paucity of public policies promoting participation of women in higher education, women have been gaining a presence in such institutions across the world. While this has been occurring largely as a byproduct of the mass expansion of universities-which has been greatly aided by a growing private sector-the enrollment of women in post-secondary education has grown almost twice as fast as that of men (UIS, 2010).Today, women represent the majority of university enrollments in four of eight world regions and their presence is particularly noticeable in Europe and the Americas. In European countries, 60% of higher education degrees are earned by women, including 50% of the Ph.D. degrees (OECD, 2010). A similar pattern occurs in the U.S., where women have earned the majority of the associate's degrees since 1977, the majority of bachelor's since 1981, the majority of master's since 1980, and the majority of doctoral degrees since 2006 (NCES, 2011). As faculty members and high-level administrators, however, the representation of women is still deficient. Across the world, the greatly increased number of women graduates has not resulted in similar gains in their academic positions. In the U.S., more men than women enjoy tenured and tenure-track positions while women are over-represented in non-tenure positions (AAUP, 2011). Women represent about one-fourth of the full professors (Curtis, 2011)-a figure that has been slowly improving over time-and the majority of instructors and lecturers, positions that offer very limited prospects for promotion and, for those in part-time employment, high job instability with no health or pension benefits. Institutions of higher education have been changing enormously in recent decades, moving into more part-time positions and fewer permanent appointments (Black, 2005); indeed, some consider that the professoriate has been the occupation experiencing the most drastic change in contemporary society. In the U.S., between 1976 and 1995, a time span of only 20 years, part-time positions increased by 91% while full time increased by only 27% (Dugger, 2001). By 2011, 51% of the faculty worked part-time (AAUP, 2013). Tenure, long a distinctive feature of academic work, has become scarce, representing at present only 30% of the faculty positions; further, 19% of the full-time positions are now non-tenure track (AAUP, 2013). According to the American Association of University Professors (2011), women comprise 63% of the non-tenure track faculty-positions are generally part-time and subject to short-term contracts. Unsurprisingly, US women academics earn less than men at each of the professorial ranks and at any type of higher education institutions. Part-time and low-paid positions among women have also been detected in so many countries till date. I am fully aware that "women" is not a universal category as it intersects with socio-economic status, race, ethnicity, and age, among others. This intersectionality is not the focus of this paper. However, it should be stated that women from upper social classes are benefiting more than those from low-income families. For instance, in the U.S., more women than men graduate from college among families in the top 25% of the earning distribution; in contrast, there is almost no women's advantage among the poorest families.