Academic appointments in political science in Australia

The Australian Research Council (ARC) is responsible for administering Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), Australia’s national research evaluation framework. In the ERA 2015 evaluation round, gender data was collected for the first time. Gender data was used for aggregate reporting and analysis purposes only and to provide a baseline for analysis in future rounds: it was not made available to peer reviewers or Research Evaluation Committees (RECs) and did not form part of the evaluation process. Figures were published at the two-digit Field of Research (FoR) code level.

In 2018 the ARC published data at the four-digit FoR code level revealing figures for individual social science disciplines, such as 1606 for ‘Political Science’. These figures show that women are concentrated at lower levels, being 43 per cent of Level A appointments), and their numbers decline through the levels, being only 21 per cent at professorial level (E).

Figure 1. Distribution of academic appointments in history in Australia by gender, 2017 (headcount)

Source: Australian Research Council, Gender and the Research Workforce. Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) 2018.

An audit of the status of women in political science, conducted by Alison Plumb in 2010, was featured in the 2011 Advancement of Women in Australian Political Science Workshop. Plumb (2011) undertook an audit of staff homepages of 27 political science and international relations departments in Australian universities in 2010. Women remained under-represented in the discipline, constituting just 28 per cent of all academic position across departments in Australia. Figure 1 shows the profile of Australian political science. It shows that one in three political scientists lecturers, fellows or post-doctorates are women. However in her audit of political science department’s websites Plumb (2011) found that a mere 38 professors or associate professors of political science were women representing quarter of all professors and associate professors.

Figure 2. Distribution of academic appointments in political science, Australia, by position and gender, 2010

Source: Alison Plumb (2011, September 29). The status of women in Australian Political Science: A gender survey of departments. Paper presented at the Advancement of Women in Australian Political Science Workshop, Australian National University, p. 2.

On average, within the top eight universities in Australia, women represented around one in three political scientists. However, there was great variety in how universities performed (Plumb, 2011). The department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne, for example, performed above average with women representing 47 per cent of all of its staff. An audit of the department of Politics and International Relations at Monash University found that a mere 17 per cent of its staff were women. Monash University was significantly below (16 percentage points) the average for the top eight universities.

Table 1. Percentage of women academics in political science in Group of Eight departments, Australia. 2010

Figure 3. Percentage difference between women in political science department and average for political science departments in top eight universities, Australia, 2010

Earlier surveys suggested a sustained increase in the share of women in academic positions in the discipline. The first survey conducted in 1979 found that women represented 11 per cent of tenured positions, and 28 per cent of the PhD candidates (Plumb, 2011). This survey was one of the first initiatives that followed the emergence of the Women’s Caucus of the Australasian Political Studies Association (APSA) in 1979. At the time the survey attracted responses from 19 departments with eight departments having one tenured woman and six having no women with tenure or tenurable positions (Sawer, 2004).

In 1997 the Women’s Caucus initiated a survey on the status of women developed by the APSA President at the time, Carol Johnson, and Louise Chappell, as Women’s Caucus representative on the APSA Executive. Twelve responses were received (Sawer, 2004). This APSA survey found that the number of tenured positions held by women had almost tripled, rising to 29.7 per cent of a total of 172 tenured positions. Despite this positive trend, only one woman held the position of Professor or Associate Professor and women were concentrated in the lower academic levels. The 1998 survey recorded an increase in the number of women enrolled as PhD candidates which accounted then for 38.2 per cent of all candidates (see Plumb, 2011; Sawer, 2004).

By 2010 women represented 47 per cent of all political science doctoral candidates (Plumb, 2011). This historical data suggests a strong and sustained growth in the number of women in the discipline and in particular in doctoral positions. It also points to considerable leakage in the discipline with the larger number of women engaged in doctoral studies in the discipline failing to translate into employment opportunities for women in academia (Cowden, McLaren, Plumb & Sawer, 2012; Plumb, 2011). The gap between the share of women PhD candidates and the share of women in academic positions, as evidenced in the most recent 2010 survey, has never been so high, with a difference of 19 percentage points between share of women doctoral candidates and the share of women in academia (Plumb, 2011).

Figure 4. Share of women PhD candidates and share of women in academic positions in political science, Australia, by year, 1979, 1998, 2010

The International Political Science Association (IPSA) monitors women’s engagement in political science associations. Read more ...

References

Mhairi Cowden, Kirsty McLaren, Alison Plumb and Marian Sawer (2012). Women’s advancement in Australian Political Science, Workshop Report 2012. Australasian Political Studies Association.

Alison Plumb (2011, September 29). The status of women in Australian Political Science: A gender survey of departments. Paper presented at the Advancement of Women in Australian Political Science Workshop, Australian National University.

Marian Sawer (2004). The impact of feminist scholarship on Australian political science. Australian Journal of Political Science, 39(3), 553-566.