Female Representation in Academia: Are Women Underrepresented among Faculty at Public Colleges and Universities?

Abstract

There is widespread global attention toward improving female representation in higher education institutions. In 2020, the Educational Official Act was amended to promote gender-conscious academic recruitment in favor of female faculty, who are historically underrepresented in academia, highlighting a notable disparity in female faculty representation between public and private institutions in South Korea. This amendment requires all public colleges and universities to maintain a proportion of female full-time faculty at a level equivalent to that of their private counterparts. Using college-major level information from 2000 to 2022, we examine whether female faculty representation in public institutions lags behind that in private institutions. The estimates show that public institutions generally underperform in recruiting female faculty, but this difference becomes negligible among high-selectivity institutions. It is worth noting that no significant difference is found in female faculty representation between public and private institutions in fields such as computer science, biology, nutrition/food science, medicine/pharmacy, economics/business, other social sciences, and arts/athletics, while the largest gap is observed in the field of education. The results suggest considering college-major specific characteristics when designing and implementing gender-conscious policies and practices to promote women in academia.