investigating of effective barriers to promotion of faculty women in Iranian universities

The women's participation rate in the position of a professor, such as their participation rate in the Iranian economy, is very low. The presence of women in postgraduate education has increased due to the rapid expansion of higher education, creating opportunities for them in Iran. However, the rate of women's participation and their promotion on a university career path is still lower than the average in developed countries.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the barriers affecting the presence of women faculty at high academic levels. The research method of the study is descriptive and survey-type. The statistical sample includes 406 women faculty members working in public universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology in 1400. The sampling method is Simple Random. In the present study, the structural equation modeling approach was used by AMOS22 and SPSS22 software to analyze the data. Based on the findings, four hypotheses were confirmed. The results show that women faculty believe that "cultural factors and laws governing the university," "scientific and educational factors," "individual and personality factors," and "family factors" had the greatest effect on their low promotion in the university, respectively.
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Keywords




Higher Education, Faculty Women, Promotion
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‌Introduction
Women and men, utilizing the facilities and opportunities provided by higher education in Iran, acquire various knowledge and skills, making them ready to contribute to society (Zahedi, 2021). The low presence of women in higher education suggests that their representation has been neglected or deemed less important than that of men. Studies indicate that the position of women in Iranian universities is similar to the situation of women in universities in other less developed parts of the world (Mahdavi, Latifi, 2009).
Over the past few decades, although the presence of women in social and educational activities has significantly grown, they haven't played a significant role in economic activities, and their participation rate in economic activities is low. According to international statistics, in 2019, the labor force participation rate of women over 15 years was low (about 17.5%) compared to the participation rate of men over 15 years old (71.5%). Over the past few decades, nearly half of all students have been women[1]. However, the role of women in economic activities remains low. Of all the faculty members of the Ministry of Science (Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor), 17.9% are women, and 81% are men, with 4.7% of women and 15.1% of men achieving the rank of professor.
Finally, this article examines the views of female faculty members to what extent gender is a factor influencing their scientific promotion and identifies the components affecting the scientific progress of female faculty in Iranian public universities.
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Methodology
The research method employed in this study is descriptive and survey-based. A questionnaire, designed by the researchers, was utilized to collect data. This article presents and explores the factor structure of indicators related to the promotion of female faculty members in higher education. The statistical population of the study included 4,995 female faculty members in universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. A total of 406 questionnaires were collected based on the Cochran formula. Subsequently, the indicators of the promotion of female faculty members were structurally analyzed.
To achieve this, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted, accompanied by reliability analysis based on the internal consistency of indicators using the Cronbach alpha test. The study employed a 41-item questionnaire, consisting of 9 questions assessing women's personality traits and 32 questions evaluating the impact of barriers on the promotion of women.
 
Findings
The hypothesis of this study aimed to explore the impact of four barriers on the promotion of female faculty members, and this hypothesis was confirmed. The results suggest that four primary factors significantly influence the promotion of female faculty in higher education. These factors were categorized as "Cultural factors and academic rules," "Science and Education," "Individual and Personality," and "Family." During the confirmatory factor analysis stage, the obtained factor structure model underwent testing using the structural equation modeling method (Amos). The results from confirmatory factor analysis reveal that these factors exhibit a negative factor load on the promotion of female faculty members.
 
‌‌‌‌Result
This study investigates the perspectives of female faculty members from public universities regarding the impact of gender on scientific promotion. The study formulated four hypotheses. The first hypothesis explores the influence of cultural factors and academic rules in universities on the slow progression of female faculty members to higher academic positions. Consequently, disparities in culture and regulations diminish the representation of women at the higher levels of associate professors and professors.
The second hypothesis confirms that the index of scientific and educational factors affects the promotion of female faculty members. According to the viewpoint of female faculty members, women are scientifically equivalent to men, but they face unequal access to opportunities.
The third hypothesis reveals that individual and personality factors impede the promotion of female faculty members. The results indicate that women may lack access to higher levels of academia due to lower self-confidence and less motivation to progress compared to men.
Furthermore, the fourth hypothesis posits that women, as mothers and wives, bear responsibilities that can impede their progress. However, the results demonstrate that family factors are the least significant among the three other factors. The findings indicate that female faculty members consider the external environment more crucial than internal and family-related issues.