On gender parity in academic leadership roles

Since its inception in 1885, Stanford University has not once had a woman president – Jane Stanford’s notable contributions to the university's founding notwithstanding. Despite being included in a group known as the Ivy Plus, Stanford differs from other leading universities: in the fall of 2023, six out of eight of these universities were being led by women. Speaking recently to the Clayman Institute Faculty Research Fellows, Stanford Associate Professor of Education Christine Min Wotipka highlighted this troubling piece of information while sharing her research predicting first women university presidents. 

The cross-national analysis Wotipka and her colleagues conducted, looking at data from 1970 to 2024, concerns women in university leadership roles worldwide, giving special attention to women university presidents (and those in leadership positions with different titles). The talk touched on international, national, and regional data on whether universities have ever had a woman president and examined the world-societal circumstances for why that may be. 

While women remain underrepresented in academic leadership roles, the number of women students attending colleges and universities – not just in the U.S., but around the world – has risen. Wotipka noted that by 2023, globally, there were 113 women enrolled in higher education institutions for every 100 men, up from nearly equal numbers in the year 2000. According to Wotipka, existing research has found that women-led colleges and universities foster more equitable environments. Likewise, these colleges tend to be more “democratic, communal, and inclusive for all higher education stakeholders.” Striving for gender parity among leadership positions at higher education institutions is therefore beneficial for the university community as a whole, and one of the leading factors for why this research is being conducted.

Looking at a sample of 234 higher education institutions in the U.S. between the years 1980 and 2018, Wotipka found the number of first women university presidents saw a steady increase, from just under 15% to 56%. The study concluded that two factors were able to predict whether a U.S. college or university has at some point had a woman leader. The first was whether these institutions had a gender studies program, and the second was whether the institution was located in a state with a higher number of women in state-level legislatures.

To predict the circumstances which allow women’s attainment of academic leadership roles internationally, Wotipka and her colleagues employed theoretical frameworks from which to orient the project’s main arguments, most notably the World Society Theory developed at Stanford’s Department of Sociology and Graduate School of Education. This theory holds that states and institutions are influenced by globally shared norms, values, and models that are diffused through carriers. In the case of women’s rights, Wotipka highlighted membership in international NGOs and ratification of the 1979 U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). 

Collecting data for each country took combined approaches – consulting websites and archives to identify names and pronouns of leaders, working with fluent website readers, and in some cases contacting gender scholars within the country – to confirm first women presidents in 202 countries. Data analysis is being conducted now. Wotipka plans a number of possible associations to investigate: for one, that countries whose globally shared norms and values align more strongly with gender equality are more likely to see first women university presidents. Other arguments propose similar predictors: regional influence, or nearby countries with women university presidents; countries that have ever had a woman head of state; the general societal status of women; and the presence of gender or women’s studies programs. The data are preliminary at this time.

As Wotipka and her colleagues continue to conduct analyses and collect variables for their predictions, they plan to further examine in future studies the conditions in which women university presidents are hired, as well as the lengths of terms for leaders by gender. With access to more data, they also anticipate being able to include in their research a diverse set of gender identities. Their research examines gender gaps in tenure as well.