Abstract:

Gender equity in academia stands out as a significant focus in higher education research. The landscape of higher education is far from gender-neutral with academic positions often exhibiting unbalanced characteristics. There are barriers and biases against women in recruitment, promotion, and salary negotiations within academia serving as filters, deterring women from pursuing, persisting in, and advancing through academic careers. Thus, according to a recent UNESCO-IESALC report, female outnumbered male as students (52%) worldwide in 2020 but represented 45% of teachers. Even if the increase is notorious (female teachers were less than 35% in 1990), there is a still a lack of parity in academic positions.

In European higher education, a clear distinction exists among bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. Numerous studies have highlighted a concerning trend: as educational attainment rises, the representation of women in academic positions tends to decline. In this sense, this study focuses specifically on the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), a European university affiliated with the European University Association (EUA) and positioned within the range of 401-500 in the Shanghai ranking. Presently, the UPV/EHU boasts a staff of nearly 6,000 individuals, with the number of women in the academic staff experiencing significant growth in recent years, culminating in their representation reaching 50% of the workforce by 2022. Additionally, 37.4% of the staff are engaged in doctoral programs as potential supervisors.

Hence, the aim of this research is to study the involvement of women in doctoral programs as supervisors within the UPV/EHU. The methodology adopted involves an analysis of the university's 67 doctoral programs categorized by areas of knowledge, along with an examination of the theses defended, under similar gender premises. The findings reveal that only 38.4% of academic staff in doctoral programs are women, with this percentage decreasing to 33.9% for women supervising doctoral theses at UPV/EHU.

Keywords:

Doctoral programs, doctoral theses, female supervisors, UPV/EHU.