At Styrian universities

Female professors are still outnumbered

The main building of the University of Graz

(Bild: APA/ERWIN SCHERIAU)

Two thirds of Graz University graduates are female, but the proportion of female professors is only 35% - at some universities even lower! Where does this imbalance come from? And what are the universities doing to compensate?

While two thirds of the students in the lecture halls are women, the situation for professorships is still the opposite: most positions are held by men. Or to put it another way: the higher up the university hierarchy, the more male it becomes.

Where does this imbalance, this "leaky pipeline", as the phenomenon is called, come from? "The causes have been the subject of intensive research since the 1990s," says Barbara Hey, Head of the Coordination Office for Gender Studies and Gender Equality at the University of Graz. "This is partly due to historical reasons, because women are newcomers to the field: It wasn't until the 1950s that the first female professor ever existed, and until the 1990s the rate was three percent."

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

Nevertheless, the problem will not solve itself over time. "It's also about how the definition of academic excellence comes about. The image of a perfect professor is male-dominated and geared towards typically male biographies." Women struggle with prejudices, for example that family and science are mutually exclusive. In a system in which advancement is based primarily on personal promotion, this is poison.

Barbara Hey does not see a regression. Rather, the universities are generally fighting for young academics: "That makes discrimination fade into the background."

The problem is very complex. We train personnel selection committees so that they make their choices without prejudice.

Barbara Hey, Leiterin der Koordinationsstelle für Gleichstellung

Bild: Alumni UNI Graz/Marco Reif

Technical University and Montanuni lag behind
A comparison of the Styrian universities shows that the University of Leoben with 11% female professors and the Graz University of Technology with 20% bring up the rear. Men also make up the majority of students.

Women's quotas at Styrian universities, rounded, 2023

University of Leoben

• Students: 26 %
• First degrees: 22 %
• Professorships and equivalents: 11 %

University of Graz

• Students: 62 %
• First degrees: 66 %
• Professorships and equivalents: 36 %

Medical University of Graz

• Students: 58 %
• First degrees: 57
• Professorships and equivalents: 26 %

Graz University of Technology

• Students: 33 %
• First degrees: 27
• Professorships and equivalents: 20 %

Graz University of the Arts

• Students: 48 %
• First degrees: 57
• Professorships and equivalents: 26 %

Source: Unidata Gender Monitoring, Leaky Pipeline

However, it is also about bringing men into female-dominated fields, such as education: "In the future, we will not only have to change PR, but also the curriculum and position ourselves more broadly. You have to ask yourself: what do people need so that they want to study with us?" Subjects such as law have shown that this can work.