Tracking the Progress of Women in Faculty Positions in Higher Education

A new report from the TIAA Institute finds that women have made significant progress in increasing their percentage of faculty positions in higher education over the past two decades. But women remain underrepresented in many fields.

In 1993, women made up 38.6 percent of all faculty in American higher education. Twenty years later in 2013, women were 49.2 percent of all faculty. Among tenured, full-time faculty, women held 24.9 percent of all positions in 1993 and 37.6 percent in 2013.

Women were 14.8 percent of all full professors at U.S. colleges and university in 1993. In 2013, women were 36.1 percent of all full professors.

Not all the news was good. For example, among tenured faculty, African Americans were 6.3 percent of all tenured women faculty in 1993 and but only 5.8 percent of all tenured women faculty in 2013.

The full report, Taking the Measure of Faculty Diversity, may be downloaded by clicking here.