Study Finds Significant Growth Among Women Faculty Representation Since 2016

Over the past decade, universities across the country have invested heavily in initiatives to promote diversity among their faculty, staff, and students. A new study from the University of Missouri has tracked how women’s representation among both STEM and non-STEM faculty at the country’s top universities has changed throughout the 21st century, with a particular focus on changes since 2016.

The authors leveraged data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and prior research studies to examine changes in the share of women faculty at public R1 universities from the 2001-2002 to the 2021-2022 academic years. Overall, the share of women faculty members across all disciplines rose from 25 percent in 2002 to 36 percent in 2022.

At the assistant professor level, women have almost reached gender parity, representing about 47 percent of all assistant professors. While representation at the associate and full professor levels is not as high, the gender gaps among these more prestigious ranks are closing faster than that of the assistant professor level. Over the past 20 years, the shares of full women professors and associate professors have increased by 13 and 10 percentage points, respectively, compared to a 7 percentage point increase among women assistant professors.

Since the 2015-2016 academic year, women’s growth in faculty representation in STEM fields has outpaced that of non-STEM fields. However, this was mainly driven by significant increases in women’s representation among STEM assistant professors. In contrast, the share of women assistant professors in non-STEM fields decreased over the same time period. At the associate professor and full professor ranks, both STEM and non-STEM fields saw significant increases in women’s representation.

The authors conclude that programs that promote gender diversity in STEM, such as the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program, could be an explanation for the recent improvements in faculty gender diversity. However, considering many of their findings were concentrated at the early-career assistant professor level, the authors believe long-term research in this area will be necessary to properly track faculty diversity trends going forward.