Gender, Race and Academic Profession: Inequalities in Brazilian Higher Education

Abstract

The article highlights a stratification in the academic profession, which leads to inter-institutional gender inequality. Women are allocated unequally to men between different types of institutions. Race data shows a high percentage of non-declaration, which already means an exclusion process and makes analysis difficult. This research contributes to the debate on gender and race in the academic environment and to encouraging the production of racial data in all professions, supporting related public policies.

Keywords
Gender; Race; Academic Career; Higher Education

Resumo

Este artigo visa contribuir para o debate sobre gênero e raça no ambiente acadêmico e para o incentivo à produção de dados raciais em todas as profissões, subsidiando políticas públicas relacionadas. Evidencia uma estratificação na profissão acadêmica, que leva a uma desigualdade de gênero interinstitucional no ensino superior brasileiro. As mulheres estão alocadas de forma desigual em relação aos homens entre os diferentes tipos de instituições. Os dados de raça apresentam alto percentual de não declaração, o que já significa um processo de exclusão e dificulta a análise.

Palavras-chave
Gênero; Raça; Acadêmicos; Educação Superior

Introduction

Gender inequalities are present in diverse spheres and institutions of society. When contemplating those spaces where women remain underrepresented, the academic profession stands out as a clear example. Science in particular has drawn attention ever since the 1980s. The field of Gender, Science and Technology Studies (GSTS) emerged in the wake of research into the low participation of women in science (Margaret Rossiter, 1982)¹ and consolidated around the debate on androcentrism and its embedding in scientific structures and practices (Evelyn Keller, 1989). These critiques resulted in the formulation of a feminist epistemology (Sandra Harding, 1996).

The subordination of women also forms part of a wider set of dynamics that affect them in different ways. Specific contexts can include additional categories of vulnerability that intersect with women’s subordination and reflect the interplay between gender-based vulnerability and other dimensions such as race, ethnicity and class (Kimberlé Crenshaw, 2002). Black feminism, which first emerged in multiracial, pluricultural and racist societies like those of Latin America, takes racism and its impact on gender relations as its central axis, recognizing how racial prejudice determines gender hierarchies within these societies (Sueli Carneiro, 2011).

Beyond these inequalities, the profile of academic professionals in Brazil is also defined by structural differences within the higher education system, themselves a reflection of institutional policies. The University Act of 1930 instituted the academic degree as a key requirement for building an academic career (Elizabeth Balbachevsky, 2011). Later, the University Reform of 1968 resulted in the adoption of the research university model in the public sector, while also driving the expansion of enrolments in the private sector where teaching became predominant (Balbachevsky, 2011).

The aim of this article is to explore the inequalities within the academic profession related to gender and race, focusing especially on employment regimes and management positions, investigating the distribution of academic staff across different categories of Brazilian higher education institutions, as defined by Simon Schwartzman et al. (2021). The article is divided into five sections in addition to the present introduction. The first section explores aspects of gender and racial inequality in academia. The second describes the characteristics of the academic profession and institutions in Brazil. The third explains the methodology used in this study, discussing the challenges involved in obtaining data relevant to analysing the issues of gender and racial inequality. The fourth section presents the research findings and the article concludes with some final considerations.

Gender and Racial Inequalities in Academia

The development of the concept of gender began as an alternative to the concept of patriarchy, responding to the causes of women’s oppression (Adriana Piscitelli, 2002). For this reason, feminist approaches to gender are fundamentally concerned with the situations experienced by women, even if their analyses are not limited to women alone. Gayle Rubin (2018) suggests that the subordination of women can be understood as a product of the relations through which sex and gender are socially organized and produced. She defines the ‘sex/gender system’ as the framework most appropriate for explaining the construction of the relations that still predominate in society, shaping people’s sexual lives as well as prevailing ideas about men and women. It should be pointed out from the outset that the present research uses the terms sex and gender in accordance with the type of analysis undertaken, while recognising that these terms are not synonymous.

In the academic profession, gender inequalities manifest in multiple ways at institutional level (David Knights and Wendy Richards, 2003): these include vertical concentration, horizontal concentration and contractual segregation. Vertical concentration refers to the concentration of women in lower-ranking employment positions, horizontal concentration refers to the concentration of women in specific areas, such as the humanities and social sciences, while contractual segregation highlights the unequal distribution of female academics in temporary and part-time contracts compared to their male counterparts.

The concept of vertical concentration is similar to what is commonly dubbed the ‘glass ceiling,’ a term popularised by Nora Frenkiel in 1984, which describes the invisible barrier preventing women from reaching the highest positions within an organisation – those associated with greater power and prestige – effectively keeping them stuck in mid-level positions (Serdar Öge et al., 2014).

Raewyn Connell (2006), however, questions the glass ceiling concept as overly simplistic, since it reduces gender to two fixed categories – men and women – by considering the statistical disparities between these two groups as the sole measure of any gender issue. Instead, she proposes a multidimensional approach to our understanding of gender regimes, which involve: (1) the gendered division of labour; (2) gendered power relations; (3) human relationships and emotional dynamics within organisations; and (4) gender culture and symbolism in the workplace. Connell’s (2006) critique of the glass ceiling concept can be extended to other notions and contributes to a clearer understanding of the diverse conditions under which gender manifests as a relational category.

The academic profession is shaped by both formal and informal requirements that preserve masculine codes, cultures and traditions, constructing femininity through stereotypes that effectively keep prestigious positions in the hands of men (Ulrike Schultz, 2021). This set of mechanisms, along with academic career progression itself, contributes to what the literature calls a ‘leaky pipeline’ – the progressive loss of women as careers progress.

Betina Lima (2013) proposes the concept of the ‘crystal maze’ to describe the multiple barriers encountered along women’s career paths as professional scientists and the variable consequences of these obstacles, related simply to the fact of belonging to the category ‘woman.’ The various challenges and traps set within the maze have certain outcomes, including slow advancement, professional stagnation at a certain level and/or the woman’s decision to leave the academic career altogether.

Advancing her analysis, Lima (2013) discusses the various strategies utilized by women to deal with the obstacles encountered in their academic careers: (a) avoiding the pain, characterized by the manoeuvres employed by women scientists to avoid recognizing the gender-specific barriers they face over their careers; (b) automatic sexism, which operates through social representations defining what it means to be a woman, constructed within a heteronormative gender logic, combined with an image of the scientist rooted in androcentrism; (c) instrumental sexism, which uses gendered cultural values as a strategy to secure positions of power or visibility when resources such as technical competence or scientific argumentation have proven insufficient to guarantee a woman’s academic position, undermining her prestige; d) conflicts between the discourses surrounding being a woman and being a scientist, anchored in the dissonances between the values required to be a ‘good scientist’ and the expectations associated with being a ‘good woman’ in various areas of life, including marriage, motherhood, the maintenance of affective relationships and norms defining how women are expected to act and appear, often leading them to adopt masculine behavioural patterns in order to stay within the scientific environment.

In higher education institutions around the world, more intensive research activity also tends to disadvantage women. According to the U-Multirank Gender Monitor (2021),² while women already represent only 38% of faculty members in institutions with a low percentage of research expenditure, this number drops further to just 23% in more research-intensive institutions.

In the Brazilian context, considering the full trajectory of the academic profession, women make up the majority of those completing undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (master’s and doctoral degrees), yet most academic positions continue to be held by men (Venturini, 2017). Graph 1 shows the distribution of active academic staff by sex between the years 1995 and 2019. A reduction in gender inequality can be observed, with women representing 39% of academic staff in 1995 and increasing to 47% by 2019. This pattern is also encountered in Latin American universities, where women represent 35% of academics at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and 42% at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) (Ana Estefanell and Diana Alarcón, 2013).

Graph 1
– Active academic staff by sex, 1995 to 2019

Still in relation to the Brazilian context, gender inequalities manifest across diverse variables:

1. age: women, on average, begin their academic careers two years earlier than men (Schwartzman and Balbachevsky, 1996);

2. academic status: women tend to occupy unequal positions, work full-time, hold a master’s degree as their highest qualification, and earn less than men (Schwartzman and Balbachevsky, 1996);

3. concentration in areas: women are more prevalent in the Humanities and Education, but remain at a disadvantage in technological fields such as Engineering, the Hard Sciences and Earth Sciences (Schwartzman and Balbachevsky, 1996; Venturini, 2017);

4. career position: women remain a minority in the highest-ranking academic positions (Marília Moschkovich and Ana Almeida, 2015), even in public institutions where staff are hired through competitive public examinations (Daniela Vaz, 2013);

5. academic prestige: men are more concentrated in higher-prestige institutions, typically associated with research activity: research universities (58.9%), elite private institutions (61.4%) and research institutes (73.5%);

6. awards and research productivity grants: women account for just 33% of researchers receiving Research Productivity Grants from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (Vaz, 2010), 35% of grants awarded between 2010 and 2021 (Rodrigo Andrade, 2022) and just 23% at the highest level of the grant (PQ-1A) between 2013 and 2016 (Suzane Barros and Luciana Mourão, 2020).

Beyond these points, the intersectionality of gender and race further exacerbates inequalities within the academic profession. These two factors are not merely additive; rather, their effects are compounded, resulting in even greater disadvantages. Institutional practices and policies do not operate solely through the privileges granted to white people over black people, or to men over women, but through a combination of multiple privileges that systematically discriminate against black women (Meera Deo, 2019).

In the United States, the presence of women from minorities in departments at elite research universities is virtually nonexistent, despite the existence of a sufficiently qualified pool of women (Donna Nelson and Diana Rogers, 2003). A study by the National Science Foundation (2019) shows that while women represent 38.5% of PhD holders in science, engineering and health, racial and ethnic minorities³ account for just 8.9%, considerably lower than their share of the general population aged 18 to 64, which is approximately one-third.

In Brazil, affirmative action policies for students were introduced through Federal Law No. 12.711/2012 (Venturini, 2017). The relevant literature has focused mostly on colour/race inequalities among the student body, revealing a lacuna in the discussion regarding academic staff.

Discussing Law No. 12.990/2014, which reserves 20% of posts filled via federal public service examinations for self-declared black candidates, Flavia Rios and Luiz Mello (2019) pose a specific question concerning the law’s application to public competitions for academic posts in higher education – a question that still awaits an adequate response. If the increase in the number of black students at federal universities can be taken as an indicator of the effective implementation of the Quotas Law, to what extent has the shift in the colour/race profile of undergraduate students been accompanied by a similar change in the profile of academic staff?

As Brazilian higher education includes institutions that are not necessarily research-oriented, we need to examine the situation of women – while also looking at race – across the various types of institutions. To better understand the specificities of higher education, therefore, the next section discusses the main transformations undergone by the system and how the academic profession is configured within the higher education system.

The Academic Profession in The Brazilian Higher Education System

A number of policies implemented within Brazilian higher education have proved decisive in shaping the academic profession as it exists today. At the same time, these policies are also related to structural changes within the system itself. The University Reform of 1968 was a watershed moment, introducing a clear differentiation between the public and private sectors, defined by their distinct missions as higher education providers. The first and most significant change effected by this 1968 Reform was the designation of the university as the preferred model for expanding the public higher education system in Brazil, tasked with the missions of teaching, research and outreach (Clarissa Neves, 2003) and inspired by the US model of research universities (Schwartzman, 2014). This designation made the funding of public universities a critical issue (Balbachevsky et al., 2019), given that it required substantial financial resources to fund the employment of full-time academics with doctoral degrees as the stipulated standard. This would limit the expansion of undergraduate places in this kind of institution, as discussed later (Schwartzman, 2014).

As the demand for higher education grew, the country therefore opted to expand the system via the private sector (Schwartzman, 2014), which came to focus primarily on teaching (Neves, 2003). The private sector underwent a series of transformations following the 1968 Reform, leading to its expansion and diversification, as Eunice Durham (1998) describes. Prior to the reform, the sector was composed mostly of non-profit institutions, such as religious colleges or those created by local communities, some of which were later incorporated into state or federal education systems (Durham, 1998). New institutions emerged alongside them, funded either by churches or secular initiatives involving local governments and civil society organisations, creating a sub-system that can be called the ‘non-state public sector’ (Durham, 1998). However, the largest expansion occurred through the creation of more business-oriented institutions, which responded more directly to market pressures, frequently to the detriment of quality (Durham, 1998).

In this way, the division within Brazilian higher education was already clearly demarcated: the private sector was focused on expanding the system through teaching, creating an increasingly diverse series of institutions, while the public sector was directed to maintain universities that combined teaching, research and outreach education (Neves, 2003). These changes led to further regulations, such as the 1996 Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação: LDB), which introduced further flexibility into the higher education system (Neves, 2003). As a result, institutions with various degrees of scope and specialisation came into existence. Public institutions could be federal, state or municipal, while private institutions could be proprietary, community-based, religious or philanthropic. New classifications were also introduced: universities, university centres, integrated faculties, faculties, institutes and higher schools. Finally, for-profit institutions were permitted to operate (Helena Sampaio, 2000).

In parallel to these changes, the academic profession also underwent significant transformations. The key periods in which these changes occurred are highlighted by Balbachevsky (2011). Recognising the low number of PhD holders in Brazil, the University Act of 1930 made the academic degree a key requirement for building an academic career. Later, the University Reform of 1968 replaced the chair-based model in universities with the departmental model. Other outcomes of the reform included the introduction of full-time dedication for public-sector academic staff and the regulation of postgraduate education. Finally, the 1996 Law of Guidelines and Bases of Education (LDB) reinforced the relationship between academic degrees and public-sector academic careers, making the doctorate a prerequisite for key positions and essential for professional advancement.

The governance structure of public universities also delimits access to strategic positions, as Schwartzman and Balbachevsky (1996) describe in detail. Public universities in Brazil follow a traditional European model that grants enormous power to academics and little room for professional administrators or managers, who tend to occupy lower-ranking positions only. All senior leadership posts – including rectors, vice-rectors and those involved in institutional planning – are held by academics. This model differs from private institutions, which, although more diverse today, typically possess a centralized administrative structure whose decision-making is based on business-sector management models (Sampaio, 2011).

In the second half of the 1990s, the configuration of Brazilian higher education was transformed by changes to the evaluation and regulatory system. This began to require higher academic qualifications among academic staff and more involvement in postgraduate education. Indicators included employing professionals with at least a master’s degree and increasing the proportion of those with full-time contracts. The 1996 LDB further reinforced this trend, particularly in the private sector, by establishing that, for an institution to be accredited as a university, at least one-third of its academic staff had to hold a master’s or doctoral degree, with an equal proportion employed on a full-time basis. Furthermore, in Brazil, university accreditation came to represent not just a source of prestige but a means of obtaining a significant degree of institutional autonomy.

The high degree of institutionalization of doctoral training has led to a large proportion of academics becoming actively engaged in research, as Balbachevsky (2016) observes. Brazil’s postgraduate system is the largest in Latin America and one of the biggest among emerging countries in terms of the number of master’s and doctoral students. However, as Schwartzman and Balbachevsky (2014) also point out, a key distinction exists among public universities: some operate as true research universities, with a high proportion of postgraduate students and an academic staff composed almost entirely of PhD holders, while others remain primarily teaching universities, continuing to hire large numbers of junior academics without doctoral degrees, who tend to have less involvement in research.

To understand the effects of these transformations in Brazilian higher education on academic professionals, Balbachevsky (2016) developed a typology that characterizes the profession in Latin America according to four distinct profiles, based on the academic’s degree of engagement in research and the degree of alignment between academic credentials and career. The first profile corresponds to the more traditional academic oligarchy, composed of individuals with variable academic credentials who have nonetheless attained positions of authority within institutions. The second profile represents the academic elite, composed of professionals with strong academic credentials, well positioned within institutions and highly committed to research and knowledge production. The third profile is that of young academics, who also hold strong academic credentials and are highly committed to research and production, but who remain in lower-ranking positions within institutions. Finally, the fourth profile corresponds to teaching staff without academic credentials and with little or no engagement in research, whose professional profile more closely resembles secondary school teachers than university academics as understood in the international literature. In this latter profile, seniority is the only factor recognized to differentiate between academic staff.

Since teaching spans multiple levels of education, it is worth examining the broader profiles of teaching professionals. In Brazil, teaching in primary and secondary schools has become a predominantly female profession (Cláudia Vianna, 2002). In the nineteenth century, women were initially responsible for educating girls. Due to a shortage of trained male teachers (normalistas),⁴ however, they eventually became necessary for the education of boys as well. As access to basic education for girls expanded, the number of women entering the teaching profession also increased. In the twentieth century, the feminization of primary teaching intensified to the point that women came to dominate the profession. Hence, women’s entry into teaching began at the primary level, later extended to secondary education and eventually reached higher education, expanding in parallel with the increasing number of places available to students as a whole (Vianna, 2002).

This feminization of teaching is associated with precarious working conditions, a feature shared by other female-dominated occupations, as well as wage inequality compared to men, which remains typical across all professions (Vianna, 2002). It is worth observing that the impacts of this process are still visible today, reflected in how women’s representation declines as the education level rises. In infant education, women make up nearly the entire workforce, accounting for 97.2% in crèches and 94.2% in pre-schools (INEP, 2023). In primary education, women represent 77.5% of all teachers, and in secondary education, 57.5% (INEP, 2023). Meanwhile, as noted earlier, women account for 47% of academics working in higher education (INEP, 2022). The typical profile in higher education, according to administrative category, shows that the predominant profile in public institutions is male, aged 38, with a doctoral degree and working full-time; in private institutions, the typical profile is also male, aged 38, with a master’s degree and working part-time (INEP, 2019).

Methodology: Discussion and Form of Analysis

At the start of the proposed analysis, several issues were encountered regarding the availability of data on race/colour. It is important to emphasize that the absence of such data prevents a more detailed examination of the current situation, likewise hindering attempts to identify solutions to existing problems and propose public policies focused on increasing gender and race/colour equity.

In terms of higher education indicators in Brazil, the reports produced by INEP (the National Institute for Educational Studies and Research) contain information on the administrative categories of institutions, forming subdivisions between different their types. Sex appears as a variable in some of INEP’s reports, but these analyses are not developed in depth, usually providing only general data. Moreover, its reports seldom include analyses of academic staff by colour/race. This is due to the poor quality of data on colour/race, which compromises the feasibility of any analysis of the racial profile of either students or academics (Adriano Senkevics et al., 2016). In 2021, racial identification was not obtained for 17.2% of students, classified by higher education institutions (HEIs) under the category ‘information not available.’ Similarly, no race/colour data was obtained for 29.5% of academic staff. It is important to note that colour/race data is entered by each institution’s own Institutional Census Officer (INEP, 2024). This means that the information is collected internally by each institution, based on its own criteria.

Maria Bonelli (2021) highlights the difficulty of obtaining data on racial composition in relation to most professional groups. Even the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS), which collects data on employment, provides low-quality data on race, leading to significant underreporting among some groups. Tatiana Silva (2014) likewise explains the limitations to analysing colour/race data across the diverse reports produced by the Brazilian government. Reports based on administrative personnel records are not usually published containing the variable of colour or race, even in cases where quota policies exist, due to factors such as the absence of the variable, uncertainty about the data collection process, high rates of underreporting or a lack of interest among administrators. As Silva (2014) points out, the Federal Government publishes monthly data on its own workforce without providing information on race, despite possessing this data in its records. Surveys like the Demographic Census and the National Household Sample Survey (Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios: PNAD) also contain technical limitations that prevent more precise analyses. In addition to being conducted only every ten years, the Demographic Census lacks more detailed information on respondents’ employment relationships. As a sample-based survey, PNAD does not provide data at municipal level, making it impossible to disaggregate information by direct or indirect public administration, occupational classification or educational level. Meanwhile, national administrative records like those produced by the Ministry of Labour and Employment also present limitations regarding the colour/race variable and public sector employment.

Given the structural context of higher education and the academic profession, it is also important to consider the types of higher education institutions in which academics work in Brazil and how these institutions differ from one another. INEP provides data on institutions, classifying them as public (federal, state or municipal) or private (profitmaking or non-profitmaking). However, the nature of the institution does not determine its mission (Schwartzman et al., 2021). The mosaic of the country’s higher education system includes institutions that prioritize high-level education for rigorously selected, full-time students, as well as institutions that aim to provide minimally adequate teaching for students who are currently working and have had limited prior education (Schwartzman et al., 2021). To address this diversity, Schwartzman et al. (2021) developed a typology that classifies institutions into nine categories, based on their legal status (public or private), the size of institution (based on enrolled students) and their mission (such as research, postgraduate studies or professional training).

The methodology informing this article is based on information taken from the 2019 microdata on academic staff provided by INEP’s Higher Education Census, referring to the 2018 academic year. To analyse academic careers, the above classification of institutions was adopted, using the database created by Schwartzman et al. (2021) and kindly shared by the authors.

The selection of data considered the characteristics of academic staff and Brazilian higher education institutions, as shown in Table 1. This data was subsequently processed and analysed using Power BI software, resulting in charts and tables presenting descriptive statistical data.

Table 1
– Description of the variables used in the analysis of academic careers in Brazilian higher education institutions

Variable	Categories
Sex	Female Male
Colour/race	Preferred not to declare White Black Brown Yellow Indigenous Information unavailable
Type of institution	Large for-profit private institutions Large public institutions with high levels of postgraduate education Smaller public institutions with high levels of postgraduate education Differentiated institutions Public teaching-oriented institutions Private universities and university centres Independent colleges Vocational education institutions Institutions specialized in research and postgraduate education
Contract type	Full-time with exclusive dedication Full-time without exclusive dedication Part-time Hourly-paid
Management position (where applicable)	The academic staff member does not perform management, planning or evaluation activities The academic staff member performs management, planning, or evaluation activities

In 2018, there were a total of 399,428 academics employed in 2,608 higher education institutions. As the analysis was based on the classification previously developed by Schwartzman et al. (2021), 192 uncategorized institutions were excluded, resulting in the removal of 1,822 academics from the analysis. The final sample thus comprises 397,606 academics employed in 2,416 higher education institutions, divided into nine categories.

Finally, a review of the literature was conducted, analysing gender and racial inequalities in academia and the academic profession within Brazilian higher education institutions. Accordingly, the issue was contextualised through an analysis of the data on the representation of women and black women in terms of their careers, across different categories of Brazilian higher education institutions.

Results

Initially, the data on academic staff was analysed according to sex and categories of higher education institutions. Graph 2 presents the distribution of faculty by sex and institution type. First, it is important to consider the difference in the number of academic staff across the nine categories of institutions. The category with the highest number of employed academics is public teaching institutions (5), followed by independent colleges (7). The category with the fewest academics is institutions specialized in research and postgraduate education (9). However, the number of academic staff is not directly related to the size of the institutions as measured by student enrolment. Schwartzman et al. (2021) show that the student-to-staff ratio is highest in large for-profit private institutions (1), even though this category ranks sixth in total academic staff members (see Graph 2). It can be observed that women’s participation (46.76%) is lower than men’s (53.24%) across the total number of staff in all categories.

Graph 2
– Sex of academic staff by higher education institution category (%)

In addition, female participation is lower than male participation across nearly all categories, with the exception of large for-profit private institutions (1). Overall, gender inequality is less pronounced in private institutions.

The largest gender difference is found in institutions specialized in research and postgraduate education (9). It is important to emphasize, however, that this category comprises a small number of institutions, primarily concentrated in the STEM fields and offering postgraduate programmes, which do not represent the entirety of research institutions in Brazil given that INEP’s data is based on the provision of undergraduate courses. Nonetheless, institutions more closely linked to research exert a greater influence on the underrepresentation of women. This may be attributed to institutional policies and cultures that are more science-intensive. As Keller (1989) observed, the structure and practice of science are inherently marked by gender inequalities. However, given that the available data does not indicate the disciplinary areas in which academic staff are active, it may well be that the rates of female participation are related to the distribution of disciplinary areas across different categories of institutions. Thus while universities typically operate across a broad range of fields of knowledge, specialized institutions may focus on areas in which female participation is lower.

A higher male presence can be observed in vocational institutions, which may be related to one or two of the academic profession profiles described by Balbachevsky (2016): the academic oligarchy and teaching-oriented academics. In both cases, there is little or no engagement with research; in the first, however, faculty members hold positions of authority within the institutions, while in the second, they are distinguished by their seniority in the profession. Hence, authority and seniority are two factors that differentiate academic staff within these profiles. Similarly discussing the obstacles faced in academic careers, Schultz (2021) explains that these function to maintain prestigious positions in the hands of men. From another perspective, this male predominance may also be linked to the type of programmes offered at these institutions – namely, technological courses – which have historically been male-dominated (Schwartzman and Balbachevsky, 1996; Venturini, 2017).

Graph 3 presents data on academic staff participation in management, planning and evaluation activities in higher education institutions. According to the Manual Collection for Completing the Higher Education Census (2022), these activities refer to academics engaged in institutional management, planning and evaluation, including positions such as directors, coordinators and members of the Internal Evaluation Committee (CPA), among others. A higher proportion of women compared to men can be observed in large for-profit private institutions (53.80%) and in private universities and university centres (50.23%). In other categories, the percentage of women in management roles exceeds their overall share in the institution, including in differentiated private institutions (48.38%), independent colleges (49.73%), vocational education institutions (37.95%) and institutions specialized in research and postgraduate education (19.57%). In the remaining categories, the proportion of women in management roles is lower than their overall representation. However, as these differences are relatively small, it can be inferred that women’s participation in management broadly reflects their overall representation among academic staff. Nonetheless, women remain underrepresented in management roles compared to men.

Graph 3
– Academic participation in management by gender and higher education institution category (%)

The largest imbalance in women’s participation is observed in large public universities with high levels of postgraduate education (2), public teaching institutions (5), smaller public institutions with high levels of postgraduate education (3), vocational education institutions (8) and institutions specialized in research and postgraduate education (9). It should be noted that both public institutions and those closely linked to scientific research show lower levels of female participation in management roles compared to other categories of institutions. As highlighted in the 2021 U-Multirank Gender Monitor Report, the proportion of women among academic staff tends to decrease as research intensity increases. However, the report analyses academics in general, regardless of whether they hold management positions.

In this case, the results may be related to differences in academic careers between the public and private sectors, shaped by their separate missions as defined by the institutional reforms, as indeed Neves (2003) points out. Since institutions in the private sector are more focused on teaching, women may enjoy a more balanced level of participation, acting as coordinators of undergraduate courses, for example. By contrast, management positions in public institutions tend to be more varied and more closely correlated with academic prestige and involvement in research. This also reinforces what Daniela Vaz (2013) observes regarding careers in the public sector. Although public employment is often seen as less discriminatory due to competitive recruitment through public examinations, gender segregation remains evident in terms of levels of hierarchy, revealing how women still face barriers to reaching more prestigious positions. Finally, the underrepresentation of women in management roles converges with the observations made by Marília Moschkovich and Ana Maria Almeida (2015), who highlight how vertical concentration impacts the academic profession. It is possible, therefore, that gender inequality stems, at least in part, from a disparity in the financial prestige men gain through occupying management positions. However, it is important to consider that the management roles analysed in this study may also be occupied by early-career professionals, especially those in lower-prestige roles associated with heavier workloads, which differs from the career positions examined by Moschkovich and Almeida (2015) in their study on academic career progression.

To understand the participation of women and men in relation to employment regimes, Graph 4 shows the overall percentages of academic staff by sex. Here, gender inequality is expressed through exclusive dedication employment contracts, where a clear disparity emerges between men and women. It is important to recall the context of women’s entry into the academic profession in Brazil, which occurred in precarious form, as evidenced by wage inequality in relation to men (Vianna, 2002). Although this precarity is discussed in some studies in terms of remuneration, it can also be linked to type of contract. The regime of exclusive dedication is associated with more research-intensive and public institutions, which are also distinguished by higher average academic credentials (Balbachevsky, 2011). There are more men than women in positions demanding higher qualifications – reflected in the requirement of a doctoral degree – and with greater rewards – reflected in full-time contracts with exclusive dedication. This finding highlights a structural inequality within the higher education system itself, in which the most sought-after positions are disproportionately occupied by men.

Graph 4
– Employment regime of academics by sex (%)

Additionally, men have a higher participation in hourly-paid positions. It is important to emphasize that there are two possible interpretations of what being an hourly-paid academic implies. On one hand, this category may reflect the lowest level of professional engagement and the most precarious form of contract available. On the other, it may refer to professionals who teach in their field of expertise as a reflection of their prestige. Considering the profiles described by Balbachevsky (2016), the first case can be associated with the profile of the young academic, who works primarily in teaching institutions, while the second corresponds to the older academic oligarchy, who hold positions of authority within institutions. Hence, this data probably does not show that men are working in more precarious conditions than women, but rather that women are underrepresented within the latter profile.

Graph 5 presents data on academic staff, correlating sex and colour/race. For this analysis, it is important to take into account the high percentage of undeclared responses, reflecting the low quality of this dataset. Given that colour/race data is reported by the institutions themselves (INEP, 2024), there appears to be a systemic failure in its collection. The data may have been entered either by the academics themselves or by third parties. As such, entries labelled ‘preferred not to declare’ may include both intentionally selected responses and blank fields. Because of these factors, the data cannot be considered a completely reliable representation of the currently existing situation.

Graph 5
– Sex, colour/race of academics and higher education institution categories (%)

Nonetheless, the percentages of black and brown academic staff are significantly lower than those of white academics across all categories. A hierarchy in terms of representation is clear in virtually all cases: white men, followed by white women, brown men, brown women, black men and finally black women. The sole exception to this pattern is found in the category of large for-profit private institutions (Category 1), where white women account for 32.57% of academic staff and white men for 32%.

These findings corroborate Deo’s (2019) analysis of the intersectionality of gender and race within the academic profession, which considers both as sources of disadvantage, as well as Carneiro’s (2011) argument that racism in Latin American societies functions as a determinant factor of gender hierarchy. The combination of multiple privileges results in the discrimination of black women as part of a broader structural dynamic. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, the available data supports the analyses of Nelson and Rogers (2003) by highlighting the low representation of women from minority groups in elite research university departments in the United States, reflected here in the concentration of black and brown women in institutions focused more on teaching. These include large for-profit private institutions, public teaching institutions, private universities and university centres, and independent colleges. It is quite possible that research intensity exacerbates inequality at the intersection of gender and race. Further research would be invaluable to determine the factors contributing to these observed disparities, considering differences in institutional missions – teaching versus research – contract models, disciplinary areas and the existence of diversity policies.

Discussion and Final Considerations

The analysis of women’s representation across different types of higher education institutions reveals distinct realities and provides an insight into the problems that still need to be addressed if inequality is to be reduced. The underrepresentation of women in nearly all categories of higher education institutions, with the exception of large for-profit private institutions, shows that much progress still needs to be made towards achieving gender equity in Brazilian higher education. This disparity is also evident when we analyse women’s participation in management positions. Surprisingly, inequality is more pronounced in public institutions and in those institutions focused on research mission where most academic staff are recruited via public competition. This process should, in theory, ensure equal treatment for individuals within the same career record. However, public institutions often convey a false impression of equity due to the public competition process. As Vaz (2013) has already observed, the available data shows that this is a false premise requiring closer scrutiny, especially when considering hierarchical levels.

Some factors leading to the underrepresentation of women are related to the structure of the Brazilian higher education system itself. Although women have outnumbered men among PhD holders in Brazil for the past 18 years (CNPq, 2024), they remain a minority among academic staff in higher education institutions. Closer examination reveals that women are particularly underrepresented among the best academic positions – namely, full-time posts with exclusive dedication – which require a higher level of commitment and offer the highest salaries.

Connell’s (2006) questioning of the relevance of the idea of a ‘glass ceiling’ sheds light on the realities observed within the Brazilian higher education system. Gender inequality generates a series of consequences for women, shaping gender-based divisions and conferring power, prestige and recognition to men. On one hand, the profession of ‘teacher’ is commonly associated with a feminine model (Vianna, 2002), generally linked to the task of ‘care,’ reflected in the high participation of women as teachers in infant, primary and secondary education. As the educational levels progress, however, this image gradually dissipates and women’s participation diminishes. On the other hand, the culture and practice of science promote an image of the ‘scientist’ as a masculine profession (Lima, 2013), thereby similarly conferring power and prestige to men. In Brazil, the role of ‘teacher’ is generally associated with private institutions whose primary mission is teaching, whereas in public institutions, where the focus is on both teaching and research, the roles of ‘teacher’ and ‘scientist’ tend to merge (Neves, 2003). Gender inequality is thus most evident within public and research-intensive institutions. This allows us to identify a stratification within the academic profession in Brazil’s higher education system, generating an inter-institutional gender inequality, perhaps resulting from the barriers encountered by women over the course of their academic trajectories. These barriers can result in slow career progression, stagnation and/or eventual dropout (Lima, 2013), ultimately leading to an unequal distribution of women throughout the system. In other words, after completing their doctorates, women are unequally distributed as professional academics in the higher education system compared to men. This gender inequality is manifested in the types of employment contracts, which reflect differentiated demands and embedded disparities in pay.

Other contributing factors are related to the structure and practice of science, which have been extensively explored within the field of gender, science and technology studies (Keller, 1989). These structural aspects help explain the difficulties women face along their career path as professional academics, forming what Lima (2013) calls the ‘crystal maze.’ Furthermore, the degree of research intensity within institutions also influences inequality (U-Multirank, 2021). Research universities and institutions often lack institutional policies capable of promoting the necessary cultural and structural transformations. Some initiatives have begun to be developed with the aim of creating equity plans, as seen at institutions like Unicamp, linked to the university’s Executive Directorate for Human Rights and Network of Academic Women, at USP, via its Directorate for Women, Ethnic-Racial Relations and Diversities, and Fapesp with a new Programme Coordination for issues related to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). Even at these institutions, however, such initiatives remain incipient. As such, analyses of the development of equity policies within Brazilian higher education institutions constitutes a key area for future research.

In relation to the participation of black women in higher education institutions, the current diagnostic remains flawed, given the difficulties in accessing data that accurately reflects the existing reality. The RAIS database presents formal employment data for Brazil, including academic staff, by colour/race. However, it suffers from high levels of underreporting. The INEP data, which provides individual information on academic staff, shows a high percentage of non-identification, especially in data reported by public HEIs. This reflects the limited attention that has been given to the issue. The low participation of women from minority groups has also been reported in other countries, including the United States (Nelson and Rogers, 2003; NSF, 2021). In Brazil, the situation is much the same. Even with the poor-quality data provided by INEP, racism can be observed to function as a significant factor in gender inequality, as Carneiro (2011) details.

Beyond these issues, it is currently impossible to capture the differences in the representation of academics across different fields of knowledge – an extremely important variable for analysing gender and racial equity. Developing gender and race equity policies equity policies within the academic profession is an essential mission that depends on a detailed and accurate understanding the current reality. The lack of reliable data prevents a comprehensive view of the sociodemographic composition of Brazil’s higher education institutions and further complicates efforts to combat gender and racial inequality. Institutions do not currently seem to give due importance to collecting information on the colour/race of students and academic staff. It would be useful for the Ministry of Education to implement a revised framework for the data collection required from HEIs, reflecting the challenges faced by Brazilian society, as well as ensuring adequate monitoring of the completeness and accuracy of the data submitted.

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank Professor Simon Schwartzman for providing the database, which enabled a broader and more refined analysis of the various facets of the current landscape of Brazilian higher education.

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• 1
  The citation style used in this article includes the full names of authors the first time they are mentioned in order to make their gender more visible.
• 2
  U-Multirank is a consortium that conducts multidimensional analyses of higher education performance. Its 2021 report covers 1,948 higher education institutions in 96 countries. The data for the Gender Monitor are provided by the institutions themselves.
• 3
  The minority groups cited are black or African American, Spanish or Latino, and American indigenous or native peoples of Alaska.
• 4
  Normalistas were teachers trained at a “normal school” (escola normal), institutions that provided specialized training for primary school teachers in Brazil and elsewhere, especially in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Nov 2025
• Date of issue
  Oct 2025

History

• Received
  15 May 2024
• Accepted
  03 July 2025