The Canadian Association of University Teachers /Association canadienne des professeures et professeurs d’université (CAUT/ACPPU) reports in its 2013–14 Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada that in 2010-11 women were 49 per cent of appointments. The figures include lecturers (59.1 per cent) and assistant (58.1 per cent), associate (50 per cent), and full professors (38.3 per cent). More recent statistics published by CAUT do not go down to the disciplinary level. CAUT first published data for gender distribution in 2004, for the period 2000-2001 and these figures reveal that the numbers of women in academic appointments in Sociology has grown, though inconsistently, over time, including at professorial level.
Figure 1. Full-time Canadian University Teachers by Subject, Rank & Gender, 2000-2011, Sociology
Source: Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada, 2004; 2008-09; 2013–14.
More recent data on women in sociology in Canada is limited. In the absence of data on women’s representation in the academic sociology workforce since 2013-2014, we focus here on membership data from the Canadian Sociological Association / Société canadienne de sociologie (CSA) focusing on those employed in universities.
In 2018, women comprised 57 per cent of CSA members in university faculty positions, with men making up the remaining 43 per cent. Women represented a greater proportion of CSA members in part-time, contractual or sessional lecturer positions (56.4 per cent), as Assistant Professors (57.3 per cent) and Associate Professors (66.1 per cent). However, a higher proportion of Professors were men (55.3 per cent) than women (44.7 per cent), which is in keeping with the trend of women being underrepresented among the higher ranks of sociology faculty internationally.
Figure 2. Canadian Sociological Association members in university faculty positions, by position and gender, 2018
Source: Authors’ calculations, membership data provided by Canadian Sociological Association / Société canadienne de sociologie (2019). Note: The following were removed from the data provided: CSA members from outside Canada and members in the following employment categories: government employees, unemployed, students (undergraduate and postgraduate), college faculty, University (other faculty), NGO employees, private sector, retired academic, and self-employed.
In 2010, Goyder, Faller and Woodhall conducted a survey of university websites in Canada and compared this with CSA membership data to identify the number of faculty in 58 distinct sociology departments who were CSA members. They identified particularly limited CSA membership in Quebec French-language universities. Focusing on 914 cases of English-language or bilingual departmental staff, they found that CSA has more support among female than male sociologists, which may reflect the association’s history in advancing the status of women in the discipline. 26.2 per cent of female sociologists were CSA members, compared with 21.1 per cent of male sociologists. This data provides some context to the CSA membership data provided above.
References
Canadian Association of University Teachers /Association canadienne des professeures et professeurs d’université (2004; 2008-09; 2013–14) CAUT Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada.
John Goyder, Alyssa Faller and Julia Woodhall (2010) Who Belongs to the CSA? Canadian Sociological Association.
Acknowledgements
The project researchers would like to thank the Canadian Sociological Association/Société canadienne de sociologie for providing membership data.