At this pace, we'd have to wait until 2046 for it to be fifty-fifty
Negligible increase in the number of women working as full professors
Some of the women working as UU professors. Photo: Utrecht University building, DUB
The latest staff figures announced by Dutch universities reveal that 27.6 percent of people working as full professors are women this year, compared to 26.7 percent last year. Following the sharper increases in 2017 and 2018, progress has all but stalled. At this rate, it would take until 2046 for there to be an equal number of men and women serving as full professors in the Netherlands
© HOP. Source: UNL. Full-time employees, excluding those working in healthcare.
The situation varies per university. In Wageningen, the share of women professors has increased by more than three percent. Nijmegen and Tilburg have seen a rise of just over two percent. But, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the percentage of women professors has actually dropped a few decimal points.
© HOP. Source: UNL. Full-time employees, excluding those working in healthcare.
More women can be found if we descend one step on the career ladder, although the difference isn't that big compared to full professors. One in three associate professors is a woman, a figure that grew by 1.4 percentage points over the past year.
© HOP. Source: UNL. Full-time employees, excluding those working in healthcare.
The majority of lecturers without any research tasks are women. The same goes for support staff, from receptionists to policy officers. Men still outnumber women when it comes to PhD candidates but, according to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the number of men and women having completed a PhD in the past two years is roughly the same. It looks like men are more likely to fail to complete their research or they take a bit longer to obtain their PhD degrees.
© HOP. Source: UNL. Full-time employees, excluding those working in healthcare.