Gender Balance of University Professors: European Experience and Its Relevance for Russia

Abstract

The article compares measures to support female teachers in universities in the UK, Germany and Russia with gender statistics from the OECD. An ambiguous correlation was revealed: the broader the measures to support female university teachers, the lower their share in higher education. The purpose of the work is to identify the reasons for this relationship. Within the framework of the hypothesis, the following thesis was put forward: high competition in higher education affects the decrease in the proportion of female teachers and forces the states to introduce a wide range of support tools to achieve gender balance. Comparison of the specifics of the spheres of higher education in the studied countries: R&D expenditures in the field of higher education and the working conditions of teachers (average salary, mobility, a specificity of contracts, hours worked, career opportunities) made it possible to identify the level of competition in universities. The obtained results confirmed the hypothesis about the direct influence of the level of competition on the share of female teachers in higher education. In conclusion, the relevance of the experience of European countries in building a gender balance among university teachers for Russia is considered. It is concluded that significant differences in the specifics of the sphere of higher education in Russia and the studied European countries, as well as the dominant share of female university teachers in our country, are not a sufficient reason for refusing to study foreign experience. On the contrary, the measures taken by the Government and the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia in recent years, if successfully implemented, will significantly increase the level of competition in the field of domestic higher education and the issue of gender balance will become relevant. In order to prevent a possible generational gap among female university teachers and the aggravation of the problem of gender balance in the future, it is necessary to study and adapt foreign experience, avoiding mistakes.