A qualitative exploration of female professors’ promotion trajectories in public universities in Pakistan

• Date: 16 May 2024
• Pages: 106-121
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-03-2023-0098
• Published date: 16 May 2024
• Author: Fouzia Sadaf,Shermeen Bano,Rahla Rahat

A qualitative exploration of female

professors’promotion trajectories

in public universities in Pakistan

Fouzia Sadaf

Department of Sociology, University of the Punjab Quaid-i-Azam Campus,

Lahore, Pakistan

Shermeen Bano

Department of Sociology, Forman Christian College, Lahore, Pakistan, and

Rahla Rahat

Institute of Social and Cultural Studies,

University of the Punjab Quaid-i-Azam Campus, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract

Purpose –The central aim of this study is to advance understanding of the influence of university practices

and structures on shaping female academics’paths to reach the position of professor in Pakistan.

Design/methodology/approach –About 30 qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with

female professors to examine key enablers and barriers to their promotion trajectories towards reaching the

position of professor in public universities in Punjab, Pakistan.

Findings –This study presents an analysis of promotion biographies and has identified a combination of

personal, interpersonal and structural factors as enablers and barriers to the promotion trajectory from junior

academic positions to the level of professorship among female professors in public universities in Pakistan.

Three main kinds of promotion trajectories were identified, which represent three different configurations of

elements relating to (1) personal credentials and strategies to manage delays, (2) workplace relations and (3)

university promotion systems.

Originality/value –The findings of this research may be helpful in terms of (1) offering ideas regarding

support for women who are making career decisions and achieving inspiring successful careers; (2) informing

university governance to address the barriers that curtail women’s accomplishment of their career goals and (3)

devising/improving strategic plans to address the entrenched gender disparity in academic leadership and

broader society.

Keywords Pakistan, Barriers, Promotion, Higher education, Enablers, Female academics

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Gender distribution disparity, including the universal underrepresentation of women in

senior academic posts, is a prominent theme in higher education research (Van Helden et al.,

2023). The recent data from the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 suggests that 41% of women

worldwide gained tertiary education compared to 36% of men. However, despite these surges

in women’s education and careers in academia, progress is not reflected in a comparable rise

in the proportions of women in senior academic and leadership positions as women continue

to be a minority among senior academics across the global academy (Burkinshaw et al., 2018;

Rinc

on and Dom



ınguez, 2023). Statistics show that women in faculty and administrative

positions lag behind their male colleagues in promotion, ranks, salaries and professional

recognition (Burkinshaw and White, 2017).

EDI

44,1

106

We thank all the respondents that participated in the study and Professor Vikki Boliver for her

invaluable advice and supervision of this research.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 30 March 2023

Revised 20 August 2023

17 January 2024

23 March 2024

Accepted 10 April 2024

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 44 No. 1, 2025

pp. 106-121

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-03-2023-0098

However, there is a lack of systematic research on the advancement of women in academic

leadership roles or the development of their academic careers in Pakistan (Sadaf et al., 2024).

Statistics related to Pakistani women’s educational and occupational participation present

significant gender disparity and traditional gender role divisions across Pakistani society’s

domestic and public regimes, where nothing is more substantial than traditional customs

related to gender roles (Pasha, 2023). This study addresses this gap in the literature by

exploring the experiences of institutional practices and structures of a sample of 30 female

academics on their routes towards a professorial position in public sector universities in the

Punjab province (Pakistan).

Theoretical approach-gendered academy and female academics’career

outcomes

Scholarly approaches that address the exclusion and marg inalization of women in

universities include two major themes: (1) gendered university organisation and (2) linear

academic career structure. These established theoretical perspectives have been widely used

in contemporary academic enquiry that seeks to understand processes and factors involved

in creating gender imbalance with the underrepresentation of women at the higher level of the

university hierarchy. These are: (1) inherent incompatibility between university career

expectations and women ’s domestic role expectations and (2) gendered university:

organisational culture and norms negatively influence female academics’careers.

Although these approaches are not mutually exclusive, we situate our work closer to the

second perspective and discuss female academics’experiences related to career challenges

and barriers resulting from the gendered academy.

Walby (2009) and Connell’s (1996) sociological interpretations regarding changing forms

of gender regimes offer theoretical arguments for the role of public patriarchy and the

hegemony of masculine values and norms in creating gender inequality in work

organisations. In this context, Acker (1990) coined the notion of “gendered organisation”to

explicate the connection between male-dominated workplace structures and barriers and

career losses that women experience along their career routes. According to her, the gendered

character of universities refers to ingrained structural practices, biases, institutional culture

and polities that play a part in creating both explicit and invisible barriers for female

academics to move up the academic career ladder (Beidas et al., 2022;Eslen-Ziya and

Yildirim, 2022).

Gendered university t heory as a structure-led fr amework conceptual izes certain

interlinked and embedded organisational values and norms that act to disadvantage

women in their career journey in terms of constraining their chances to be promoted as

knowledge leaders and producers in global academia (Acker, 2006). These structural values

and organisational norms are: (1) standardisation and normalisation of ideal work norms and

undervaluing of family care support needs; (2) unequal and discriminatory treatment in

workloads and promotions and (3) institutional polities and constrained access to research

sponsors, professional mentoring and informal networking (Acker, 2010;Walby, 2013).

First, one of the cultural aspects of a gendered academy is the standardisation of ideal

academic norms in the form of academic excellence, research competitiveness and long hours

of work without consideration or lack of reflection on the family needs of academics.

Gendered university theory shares this element with a linear career standpoint. Both

perspectives theorise that the institutionalisation of ideal work norms for career success,

especially linking ideal career performance with the achievement of promotion, rank and

leadership, has further reinforced men’s advantage over women by demanding women to

follow ideal work norms like men (Thun, 2020). However, in most cases, female academics

with care responsibilities who need to manage both care and career demands face career

Equality,

Diversity and

Inclusion: An

International

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