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Gender Inequality Among Teachers in Further Education
Introduction
Introduction
This site introduces the topic of gender inequality in the teaching profession, particularly in the further education sector. Our research question is "In what way is gender inequality reflected among teachers in further education?". By "teachers in further education", we refer to teachers of diploma, sub-degree, or university courses, etc. (Regulated Qualifications Framework Level 4 or above), who are usually teaching adult students.
Hoping to explore the situation of gender inequality in teaching positions in further education, we have interviewed our host family, Julie and Richard, about their opinions, both of who are experienced teaching professionals who have been working in the higher education sector for many years; while Julie has been instructing psychology in a higher education institution for years, Richard is a lecturer of field biology.
The interviews we have conducted with them have shed light on the discussion. It appears that the issue of gender inequality among teaching positions in further education has been improved a lot throughout the last few decades.
We are analysing the notion in the following aspects: maternal leave, promotion opportunities, working hours, salary, collegial bullying or abuse, and social expectations on female teachers. You will know more about the benefits and challenges female teachers encounter as a result of their gender.
We hope you enjoy your time here.
- Chris and Rose
Gender Inequality in the UK
Gender Inequality in the UK
Gender inequality has been an issue in the United Kingdom throughout history. In the past, women could not enjoy many rights, such as education or voting. One of the most well-known ideals of women in early modern England is perhaps the Victorian image of “the Angel in the House”. The term originated from the title of a poem by Coventry Patmore, an English poet. In his poem, he describes the ideal woman as being devoted and submissive to her husband, and most importantly, pure, regardless of the treatment from her husband. The following is an excerpt from “The Angel in the House”:
Man must be pleased; but him to please
Is woman's pleasure; down the gulf
Of his condoled necessities
She casts her best, she flings herself.
During the second world war, women in the UK had the chance to work important roles since men had gone to war, and many wanted to continue their work and build their careers after the war had ended. The concept of the “latchkey kid” was promoted as a response to the post-war movement when women wanted to contribute directly to the economy. It was suggested that if women went to work, their children would suffer psychological disadvantage. The concept of marriage was also heavily emphasised, stating that women would be the happiest if they were married (Whiteman, 1953). As a result, there was a massive shift from women’s involvement in the workplace during the war to women’s return to household roles afterwards. Up to the 70s, women were expected to give up their jobs after they got married, until feminist movements in the 60s started to promote women's rights in areas such as health, marriage, and employment.
Gender Inequality in the Workplace
Gender Inequality in the Workplace
While the workplace has become considerably fairer for women over the years, women still earn lower wages, have fewer opportunities, and are less likely to be in top positions. For instance, the pay gap in the UK between men and women for full-time workers in 2017 was 9.1% (BBC, 2017). 37.9% of workers in a managerial position were women in 2017 (Office for National Statistics, 2019). The female representation in the UK Parliament was the highest ever in 2021, standing at 34% (Watson et al., 2021).
There are also careers that are still considered to be more suitable for a particular gender. For instance, men tend to take up more roles in STEM. In 2019, only 24% of employees in STEM were female (STEM Women, 2020). In contrast, women occupy the majority of teaching positions (secondary or below), with 76% of teachers being female in 2019 (UK Government, 2021). However, there are slightly more men than women for teaching roles in further education (55% vs 45%) (Santos & Dang Van Phu, 2019).
What is the situation in teaching positions in further education?
What is the situation in teaching positions in further education?
Hoping to explore the situation of gender inequality in teaching positions in further education, we interviewed our host family, Julie and Richard, about their opinions, both of who are experienced teaching professionals who have been working in the higher education sector for many years. Julie has been instructing psychology in a higher education institution, while Richard is a lecturer of field biology.
The interviews we have conducted with them have shed light on the discussion. Overall, the gender equality for teachers in the higher education sector has improved significantly, but there is always room for improvement. We will be analysing different perspectives of potential gender inequality in teaching positions in the following aspects.
Maternal and Paternal Benefits
Maternal and Paternal Benefits
As Julie and Richard recounted, maternal benefits granted to pregnant teachers are fairly sufficient. Female teachers are entitled to one year of maternal leave if they hope to take that (NHS, 2021). What is commonly witnessed, however, as Julie recalled, is that female teachers are reluctant to take a full year of leave as they want to secure their jobs.
Paternal benefits are equally sufficient as they recounted. However, male teachers seem to take a shorter break than female teachers do because, as Julie and Richard speculated, first, again, they do not want to risk being replaced while they are gone, and, second, some male teachers might not want to be subject to the impression that they are less manly because they take paternal leave.
However, as Julie and Richard said, female teachers in higher education do not seem to suffer from the lack of maternal benefits.
Promotion Opportunities
Promotion Opportunities
As an experienced teacher herself, Julie admitted that a few decades ago it was true that most of the teachers who could climb up to the board were male; however, things have changed drastically through the last few decades. Julie said that she has seen more and more female teachers become the heads of departments in colleges. The percentage of female managers, directors, and senior officials in the UK higher education sector has increased from 39% in 2014/15 to 45% in 2018/19 (Mantle, 2020). Meanwhile, Richard, who has been working as a coach of running in a college for years, also agreed that in the last decade he has seen more and more females taking coaching positions in colleges.
Richard and Julie said that in general male teachers seem to climb up the career ladder faster than female teachers. However, they said that may not necessarily be a social privilege that males enjoy, but rather that males seem to be usually more dominant and ambitious in their jobs and consequently may attract more promotion opportunities.
Working Hours
Working Hours
Julie and Richard said frankly that the workload teachers face is enormously heavy. Even when they are having summer or winter breaks, they are busy marking papers or designing curricula. That, however, as they said, is a responsibility that teachers of all genders have to shoulder. Regardless of their genders, teachers must learn to balance their work, family duties, and any other responsibilities they may have.
Salary Gap in Teaching Positions
Salary Gap in Teaching Positions
There tends to be a smaller pay gap between genders in teaching positions in the UK where a master pay scale is present, as explained by Julie and Richard. Teachers receive their wages based on the qualifications they have and how long they have taught, making gender not as important of a factor when it comes to salary at the start of one's career. While the situation has been improving, it is notable that women are still climbing up the career ladder relatively slower than men. The salary of some women may stay relatively stagnant if they remain in the same position compared to those who get promoted. As a result, like women in other professions, some ambitious female teachers may reach a “glass ceiling” when climbing up their career ladders, finding it hard to achieve a breakthrough and reach top positions (Qian et al., 2020). For instance, in the UK, female professors earn £4,670 less than male professors in 2015/16, as seen in the table below (Times Higher Education, n.d.). At the University of York, female professors had a lower salary (£71,451) than their male counterparts (£79,004) in 2015/16.
Unfair Treatment from Colleagues
Unfair Treatment from Colleagues
While most may consider it to be their moral duty to stand up and speak out against any instances of bullying or unfair treatment in the workplace, some trickier occasions tend to be more subtle and may not be particularly noticeable. According to Julie, some female teachers may not be able to speak out for themselves, especially if they have been brought up in an environment where females are not expected to challenge decision-makers or authority figures. They may not have the confidence to challenge poor workplace practices or unfair work allocation, and there are also concerns of repercussions or disciplinary actions that may be taken against them.
The #metoo movement, which encourages victims of sexual abuse and sexual harassment to speak up against their abusers, became widespread in 2017. Under the movement, many teachers in further education reveal abuse in the workplace by their colleagues (Anderson, 2018). Occasionally, there are also female teachers accused of abuse, so it is important to note that both male and female teachers can be abusers (North, 2018).
Social Expectations: Family > Career
Social Expectations: Family > Career
Women are choosing to have children later in life or not to have children at all. The latter would be considered an unusual decision as most in the UK would still see it as the norm for females to get married and give birth, and Julie explained that some perceive it as “going against nature” for a woman to choose not to have children. Nevertheless, that does not stop some women from making the decision.
The most common age to give birth for women born in the 70s was 31 years, as opposed to 24 years from the previous generation (Sanders, 2019). One of the reasons women leave child-rearing to the later stages in life could be that they want to gain more skills and build their careers to the point that they can come back to the workplace relatively easily after their maternity leave without being replaced.
Some women may also choose to voluntarily leave their jobs. The more children a woman has, the higher the cost of childcare. Some women may decide that it is not worth going back to work from an economic point of view, as the spending on childcare may be higher than the money they earn.
Even now, there is pressure on female teachers to focus on their family over their career, but the situation has notably improved. In the 50s, women were expected to give up their work once they got married. In the 80s, many women stopped working after they gave birth. When Julie had a son in the 80s, she did not go back to work for quite a long time. It is not common to expect women to give up their jobs after giving birth now, and most women choose to return to the workplace, even though there may be some who still frown upon women who choose to focus entirely on their career instead of having any children or getting married.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Gender inequality has been witnessed in the UK across different industries. More often than not, one gender is usually entitled to more advantages over another in certain fields.
However, according to our interview with a native couple in the UK and our own research, teaching positions in further education seem to have been improving in terms of gender equality because both male and female teachers appear to enjoy sufficient maternal and paternal benefits, a workplace that takes stricter actions against abusers, and relatively equal working hours. While there may be fewer promotional opportunities for females, the situation has been slowly improving compared to the past. Wages under the master pay scale are equal, but differences in career focus or progress may lead to certain differences in salary. While they are not expected to give up their jobs after marriage or giving birth, there is still the stigma around women who choose to focus entirely on their work. We hope to see the situation improving even further in the future until we achieve greater gender equality.
References
Anderson, N. (2018). Academia’s #MeToo moment: Women accuse professors of sexual misconduct. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/academias-metoo-moment-women-accuse-professors-of-sexual-misconduct/2018/05/10/474102de-2631-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html
BBC. (2017). The causes of social and economic inequality. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z8rvng8/revision/3
Chuck, E. (2017). #MeToo: Alyssa Milano promotes hashtag that becomes anti-harassment rallying cry. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/sexual-misconduct/metoo-hashtag-becomes-anti-sexual-harassment-assault-rallying-cry-n810986
Mantle, R. (2020). Higher Education Staff Statistics: UK, 2018/19. https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/23-01-2020/sb256-higher-education-staff-statistics
NHS. (2021). Maternity and paternity benefits and leave. https://www.nhs.uk/pregnancy/finding-out/maternity-and-paternity-benefits-and-leave/
North, A. (2018). When the accused is a woman: a #MeToo story’s lessons on gender and power. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/8/14/17688144/nyu-me-too-movement-sexual-harassment-avital-ronell
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Qian, L., Watson, J., & Bell, T. (2020). Effect of Glass Ceiling on the Earning Factor: A Case of UK. International Journal of Applied Economics, Finance and Accounting, 7(1), 1-9.
Sanders, S. (2019). Childbearing for women born in different years, England and Wales: 2018. Office for National Statistics. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/conceptionandfertilityrates/bulletins/childbearingforwomenbornindifferentyearsenglandandwales/2018
Santos, G., & Dang Van Phu, S. (2019). Gender and Academic Rank in the UK. Sustainability, 11(11), 3171.
STEM Women. (2020). Women in STEM | Percentages of Women in STEM Statistics. https://www.stemwomen.co.uk/blog/2021/01/women-in-stem-percentages-of-women-in-stem-statistics
Times Higher Education. (n.d.). In the Money?: UK University Salaries 2015-16. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/sites/default/files/breaking_news_files/uk_university_salaries_2015-16.pdf
UK Government. (2021). School teacher workforce. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/workforce-and-business/workforce-diversity/school-teacher-workforce/latest
Watson, C., Uberoi, E., Mutebi, N., Bolton, P., & Danechi, S. (2021). Women in Politics and Public Life. House of Commons Library. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn01250/
Whiteman, P. (1953). Speaking as a Woman. Chapman & Hall.
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