Gendered analysis in academic career advancement: fifteen years’ trend at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Abstract

Aims: Despite notable success in reducing gender disparity in some sectors, the problem still persists in many higher learning institutions in Tanzania. Using fifteen years data of staff employment from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), this study assessed gender disparity in employment and career advancement among academic staff. Study Design: The study adopted the descriptive research design by describing the current situation using SUA as a case study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Sokoine University of Agriculture between March and May 2017 using data of academic staff. Methodology: The Publish or Perish software was used to retrieve data on scholarly publications of individual academic staff between 1985 to 2017 for cohorts employed between 1985 and 2011. Descriptive analysis was employed to establish gender disparity in staffing and publication productivity.Results: The findings show female academic staff increased from 5.3% to 20.78% only between the academic year 2000/2001 to 2015/2016. Likewise, gender gaps are observed across all academic ranks since the majority of staff are at the lower academic ranks where women were less in each aspect. Age-wise, the university is composed of aging senior academic staff where among 33.22% of all professors almost 15% (13.5% M & 1.1%F) were above 60 years old. On scientific publications, findings reveal female staff to be below the cohort/ group average for almost all years against their counterparts. Conclusion: There is a clear disparity between male and female staff based on age, academic qualifications, ranks and publication productivity that implies the existence of some obstacles.