A case study of women academics’ views on equal opportunities, career prospects and work‐family conflicts in a UK university

Abstract

This paper reports on the views that women academics have about their career prospects, equal opportunities and the conflicts they experience between their work and personal lives in one UK university. The university in question has formal equal opportunities policies and gender monitoring systems in place. However, very few women have progressed into senior academic roles. They continue to be handicapped by well‐ingrained structural and cultural barriers and by promotion systems that still largely rely on the publication records of candidates for appointments and promotions. But this is only half the story. Some of the women we interviewed reported that they had opted to put their careers on hold because of domestic and family responsibilities. A few have resigned themselves to never achieving senior positions because of these commitments. The wider implications of these findings are discussed, including the possible effects that this will have on recruiting women graduates into careers in higher education in the future.