An Academic ‘Glass Cliff’? Exploring the Increase of Women in Swedish Higher Education Management

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi

Examines whether rising female representation in Swedish higher education management reflects genuine empowerment or merely a shift into less secure, lower-status leadership. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 senior managers, the study identifies challenges for manager-academics, including increased workload, role conflict, and reduced status and prestige. Interprets these dynamics through feminization of occupations and the metaphor ‘glass cliff’. Concludes women are placed on an academic glass cliff as management roles decline in merit and become harder to combine with scholarly careers.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Previous Research

An Academic ‘Glass Cliff’? Exploring the Increase of Women in Swedish Higher Education Management By Helen Peterson 􀀍 Sweden has the highest percentage of female university Vice Chancellors in Europe. Some of the factors that have promoted women’s representation in senior management in Swedish academia are: political pressure in the form of goals and policies, quantitative target agreements concerning women’s representation, top level commitment to gender equality goals, and a network encouraging and supporting aspiring women managers. However, although women appear to break the glass ceiling, this paper sets out to investigate whether women are genuinely empowered in Swedish academia. Drawing on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 senior managers in Swedish higher education, the paper reveals some of the challenges facing manager-academics: increasing workload, role conflict and decreasing status and prestige. Situating women’s increase in higher education management in a setting permeated by these challenges stimulates an analysis using theories about feminization of occupations and the metaphor ‘glass cliff’. Feminization refers to how women’s increase in an occupation often occurs simultaneously as it is transformed into a less prestigious work, with limited opportunities for advancement and weakened job security. The related concept ‘glass cliff’ describes a phenomenon when women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership roles in situations of turbulence and problematic organizational circumstances. The paper argues that women have been allowed to enter into management positions in higher education at the same time as these positions decline in status, merit and prestige and become more time-consuming and harder to combine with a successful scholarly career. Women are thus placed on an academic glass cliff. Keywords: Higher Education, management, women. Introduction Sweden is usually described as a country with overall high rankings regarding gender equality and has even earned the reputation as a „pioneer in the gender equality area‟ (HSV 2011) . For many years, Sweden has pursued an 􀀍Associate Professor, Linköping University, Sweden. [https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.1-1-3](https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.1-1-3) doi=10.30958/aje.1-1-3 ambitious policy to promote gender equality in the higher education domain. However, there is still a long way to go before the goal of gender equality is achieved in Swedish higher education. As in other EU countries the Swedish higher education sector is characterized by the „leaky pipeline‟ phenomenon (European Commission 2012). Although as many women as men get a doctoral degree only 22 per cent of the professors were women in 2011 (Statistics Sweden 2012) . This means that Sweden is right on the European average when it comes to women‟s representation on the grade A level (European Commission 2012) . Men are still appointed to professors to a greater extent than women, both 12 and 18 years after being awarded a doctor‟s degree (HSV 2011) . In spite of policies that have tried to increase the proportion of female professors, the chances of a woman becoming a professor have not changed over time (Danell and Hjerm 2013) . Nonetheless, one area in which women have been very successful in Swedish academia is senior management. Sweden is the country with the highest per cent of female Vice Chancellors in Europe. The average proportion of female Heads of universities in the 27 EU countries is 10 per cent. This can be compared to 43 per cent in Sweden (European Commission 2012) . In real numbers this translates into an increase in the number of women Vice Chancellors in Sweden from mere 5 in 1990 to 16 in 2010 (out of a total of 37) . The proportion of women in Pro Vice Chancellor position in Swedish academia also increased between 1990 and 2010 – from 19 to 60 per cent. In real numbers this translates into an increase of women Pro Vice Chancellors from

FAQs

What research question does the paper investigate about women in Swedish higher education management?

It investigates whether women’s increase in management roles means they are genuinely empowered in Swedish academia, rather than facing structural disadvantages.

What method does the paper use to analyze women’s experiences in management positions?

The paper draws on qualitative semi-structured interviews with 22 senior managers in Swedish higher education.

According to the paper, what challenges do manager-academics face as women enter leadership roles?

The paper highlights increasing workload, role conflict, and decreasing status and prestige.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Mimi