Tracking Progress Towards Gender Equity in the South African Academic Economics Pipeline

Nicola Branson and Emma Whitelaw

South African Journal of Economics, 2025, vol. 93, issue 3, 325-354

Abstract: What are the gender gaps among economics students and staff in public higher education in South Africa? We show that women now represent the majority of enrolments and graduates at most qualification levels, but remain under‐represented in PhD programmes, senior academic ranks and in research outputs. Promisingly, however, the gap in the share of male versus female professorships has been declining over time and is increasingly explained by covariates observed in our data. Moreover, current dynamics suggest that gender parity within academic ranks could be within reach over the next two decades. This should not, however, put advancing women in the academic economics pipeline off the agenda, but rather focus efforts where gaps remain prominent. For example, when disaggregating the professorship gap by race, stark inequalities remain: Although there has been a decline in the share of White males in the system, those remaining are retaining their professorship advantage over and above what their observed characteristics would predict.

Date: 2025
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