Introduction

Historical context of diversity in higher education

Higher education (HE) institutions have played a significant role in societal debates on gender and racial inequalities. While initiatives aimed at promoting female representation in academia date back to the 1960s (David 2015), continuing systemic barriers have prevented women, particularly women of racial minorities, from accessing senior positions, leading to concerns about the existence of a ‘glass ceiling’ effect (Oberholzer 2021; Jackson and O’Callaghan 2009). The intersectionality theory posits that female racial minorities face cumulative barriers rooted in gender and racial biases (Crenshaw 2017). For female racial minorities in the HE workplace, there may be a ‘double whammy’ of gender and racial barriers (Berdahl and Moore 2006; Logan and Dudley 2021).

Recent literature reveals that in the United Kingdom (UK), there continues to be an underrepresentation of women in senior academic ranks, particularly within the professoriate and senior leadership positions Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA 2023; Shepherd 2017; Jarboe 2019; Meho 2021). Published figures from the HESA (2023) show that although female students in the UK surpassed their male counterparts, 29.6% of professors were women in the academic year 2021/2022. Various factors, ranging from sociocultural norms to employment structural hurdles, have been attributed to this disparity (Manfredi et al. 2019).

Racial diversity in HE persists as an ongoing concern. In 2021/2022, Black and Asian individuals represented only 1 and 4% of senior roles, respectively, while 88% were occupied by White individuals (ONS 2022). These figures starkly contrast with the demographic trends in the wider population in England and Wales, where the proportion of Asian (or Asian British, Asian Welsh) has increased from 7.5% in 2011 to 9.3% in 2021, and the proportion of Black (or Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean, African) was 4%, up from 3.3% in 2011 (ONS 2022). Such discrepancies suggest considerable underrepresentation in academia relative to the wider population. The proportion of ethnic minorities in the professoriate was also considerably lower than the proportion among the staff and student body (Coughlan 2021). This declining diversity in advancing academic roles has been described as the ‘leaky pipeline’ phenomenon (Sarraju et al. 2023; Ovseiko et al. 2020). Within staff ranks, ethnic minority academics were found to be more likely to move overseas (Bhopal et al. 2016), and a University College Union analysis found a significant pay gap between White and Black academics, with Black academics earning 14% less than their White counterparts (UCU 2019). Highlighting the absence of diversity at higher ranks, in 2019, there were reportedly just 25 Black female professors in the UK of the more than 20,000 professors (Adams 2020). These inequities are particularly striking when juxtaposed against the burgeoning diversity in the general and student population, with most recent figures showing that over a quarter of UK-domiciled students are ethnic minorities increasing annually (HESA 2023).

Though commendable strides have been made to foster gender equality in HE in recent years (Xiao et al. 2020), there are concerns that gender and racial initiatives may not always align (Bhopal 2023; Kalpazidou et al. 2020). A call to recalibrate these initiatives to more comprehensively address the nuances of ‘double marginalisation’ at the intersection of gender and race (Stockfelt 2018) is, therefore, both timely and critical for ensuring a more equitable environment.

Policy interventions and their real-world impact

Policy initiatives such as the Athena SWAN Charter emerged in the early 2000s as drivers of change to combat gender disparities (Xiao et al. 2020). Since launching in 2005, the Charter has issued awards to higher education institutions for showing a commitment to gender equality, and the initiative has been found to have a positive effect (Ovseiko et al. 2017). Despite success in promoting gender equity, the Charter was criticised for insufficiently accounting for the experiences of female racial minorities (Tzanakou and Pearce 2019), and in 2015, the Athena SWAN Charter was revamped and expanded to include consideration for gender with race.

In parallel, the Equality Challenge Unit (now Advance HE) went a step further in 2016, launching the Race Equality Charter (REC), which applies many of the principles of the Athena SWAN Charter to tackling the issue of racial inequality. In terms of the effects of the REC on gender diversity, a 2021 report published by Advance HE suggested that it was too early to assess the impact (Oloyede et al. 2021); however, a recent study by Campion and Clark (2022) was less favourable, indicating that the award did not currently appear to be a driver of change.

The differential uptake between the Athena SWAN and REC memberships illustrates the complexity and challenges inherent in weaving together gender and racial equity agendas. As of February 2023, 141 institutions were members of the Athena SWAN Charter, holding 124 institutional awards; while there were 99 Race Equality Charter members, with only 38 awards between them. To date, there is very limited research focused on diversity at the confluence of gender and race within academia, with few studies investigating the challenges confronting women from ethnic minorities (Bhopal and Henderson 2021; Henderson and Bhopal 2022; Oloyede et al. 2021).

Our contributions

This study aims to bridge this research gap by analysing the trajectories of ethnic minority women in senior academic roles over time. We also critically evaluate the influence of policy initiatives such as Athena SWAN and REC on fostering ethnic female diversity in academia. In doing so, we aim to deepen our understanding of diversity dynamics in HE and shed light on the real-world efficacy of current diversity strategies.

Methods

Data source

The dataset for this study, comprising higher education (HE) staff records from 2012/2013 to 2018/2019 in the UK, was obtained through a custom data request from the HESA. Data were requested for senior staff using two categories of contract levels (see Supplementary Table 1): (1) managerial leaders (contract levels A–E2) and (2) academic leaders (contract level F1). Managerial leaders, as defined by HESA, include the Head of the Institution: Vice-Chancellor/Principal/equivalent (A0), Deputy Vice-Chancellor/Pro-Vice-Chancellor/Chief Operating Officer/Registrar/Secretary (B0), Head/Director of major academic area (C1), Director of the major function/group of functions (C2), Head of a distinct area of academic responsibility centre size (D1-D3), Head of a subset of an academic area/director of a small centre (E1), and Senior function head (E2); Academic leaders (F1) refer to professors that do not have line management responsibilities (HESA 2018). The dataset provided by HESA includes Ethnicity, which was self-selected by the staff and is used interchangeably with race in this study. For data protection purposes, the data were rounded to the nearest 5.

Data on Athena SWAN and Race Equality Charter award holders were collected from Advance HE. Athena SWAN supports gender equality in HE at Gold, Silver, and Bronze levels: Bronze awards are given to institutions that have an assessment of gender equality and a 4-year action plan; Silver awards honour the measurable success of the action plan implementation; and Gold awards recognise the highest achievement in promoting gender equality (Kalpazidou et al. 2020). Some institutions are members of the Charter but do not have awards. REC awards recognise the HE institutions advancing Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic staff representation according to their accomplishments, and receiving a REC Bronze reflects the start of the process to promote racial equality (Advance HE 2023b). Data on Athena SWAN and REC award holders were collected from Advance HE, with the study using award data updated in February 2023 (Advance HE 2023ac). The analysis included 169 institutions, with 78 institutions holding Athena Bronze, 26 institutions holding Athena Silver, and 38 institutions holding REC Bronze.

Measures

We collected data on the gender and racial demographics of each HE institution at the senior staff contract levels previously outlined. The outcomes were the percentages of racial minorities (RM) altogether, including Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races, and the specific racial groups, Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races females, defined as the number of female staff for the designated contract levels for each institution, year, and race divided by the number of staff in each institution and year. Staff selecting their ethnicity as Unknown/Not Applicable were excluded from the racial minority groups.

The independent variables are Athena SWAN and REC award status. Since no institutions held the Gold award, the study examined four categories of Athena SWAN award: non-Charter members, Charter members, Bronze, and Silver. Similarly, to date, no Silver or Gold REC has been awarded. Therefore, REC awards were studied at the level of non-Charter members, Charter members, and Bronze.

Statistical analysis

To assess the female racial diversity of senior staff in HE, the study followed a three-step process. First, it compared the trends of percentages by gender and racial minorities. Second, it examined the female racial percentages from 2012/2013 to 2018/2019 descriptively. Lastly, the association between Athena SWAN or REC awards and female percentages of Black, Asian, Mixed, Other races, and the combination of all four racial minority groups was assessed using mixed-effects modelling.

The models were specified as follows:

$$Female\,Percentage_{ij} = \beta _0 + \beta _1Athena_j + \beta _2Year_{ij} + u_{0j} + u_{1j}Year_{ij} + {\it{\epsilon }}_{ij}$$
(1)
$$Female\,Percentage_{ij} = \beta _0 + \beta _1REC_j + \beta _2Year_{ij} + u_{0j} + u_{1j}Year_{ij} + {\it{\epsilon }}_{ij}$$
(2)
$$Female\,Percentage_{ij} = \beta _0 + \beta _1Athena_j + \beta _2REC_j + \beta _3Year_{ij} + u_{0j} + u_{1j}Year_{ij} + {\it{\epsilon }}_{ij}$$
(3)

where the dependent variable is the female percentage calculated using the number of females in each race divided by the total number of senior staff for year i and institution j; Athenaj is a four-level categorical variable indicating the Athena SWAN award status for institution j and the reference group is non-Charter members; RECj indicates the REC award status for institution j and the reference group is non-Charter members; Yearij is a categorical variable representing year 2012/2013 to 2018/2019 for each institution j; u0j is the random-intercept term at the institution j level to allow for the variation in different institutions; u1j Yearij is the random-slope term at the institution j and year i level accounting for the effect of years on outcomes across different institutions; and ϵij is the error term.

We examined five models for each of the following three analyses in the study: (1) examining the association between Athena SWAN awards and female percentages of RM, Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races; (2) examining the association between REC awards and female percentages of RM, Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races; and (3) examining the association between both awards and female percentages of RM, Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races. In addition, we repeated the above three analyses for two contract levels to identify any differences in the effects between managerial leaders and academic leaders. All analyses were conducted in Stata BE 17.0.

Results

Descriptive statistics

From 2012/2013 to 2018/2019, the percentage of female senior staff in HE increased from 26.3 to 30.8% (Fig. 1). The representation of racial minority senior female staff expanded by 1.9%, with the Asian female cohort showing the most pronounced increase at 1.4%.

Fig. 1: Temporal trends of female and racial minority representation in high education.
figure 1

We calculated the percentages of female and racial minorities compared to male and White leaders.

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Table 1 shows that the Mixed and Other racial subgroups experienced consistent growth during the period from 2012/2013 to 2018/2019. In contrast, the trend for Black senior female staff was less consistent. Over the period, the proportion of Asian females doubled, contributing to a similar increase for racial minorities. However, as of 2018/2019, Black females accounted for only 0.05% (15) of all senior staff, with the cumulative percentage of racial minority females standing at 1.6% (475 individuals).

Table 1 Trends of racial differences in females from 2012/2013 to 2018/2019.
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Considering the separate contract levels for managerial and academic leaders (Supplementary Table 2), Asian managerial leaders’ percentage more than doubled, from 0.4 to 1.0%, contributing to the overall percentage of racial minority managerial leaders rising from 0.4 to 1.3%. However, managerial leaders of Black, Mixed, and Other races showed no clear trend. Interestingly, racial minority representation was more pronounced among professorial roles than managerial ones, even though female representation was generally higher among managerial roles.

Mixed-effects modelling

Table 2 reveals that Athena SWAN Silver awards were positively associated with increased percentages of racial minority (β = 0.75, 95% CI [0.15, 1.35]) and Other (β = 0.41, 95% CI [0.11, 0.71]) race senior female staff compared to non-Charter members. Bronze award holders also showed a positive association for all races, although not significant. Concerning the REC awards (Table 3), REC Bronze recipients were significantly associated with increased percentages of racial minority senior female staff overall (β = 0.65, 95% CI [0.16, 1.14]) compared to non-Charter members.

Table 2 Mixed-effects modelling on Athena SWAN awards.
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Table 3 Mixed-effects modelling on REC awards.
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After including both awards in the model (Table 4), neither the Athena SWAN Silver nor the REC Bronze awards were associated with the percentages of overall racial minority female staff. Institutions with Athena SWAN Silver awards were associated with an increase in Other race female percentages (β = 0.44, 95% CI [0.08, 0.80]) compared to non-Charter members. No significant association between Athena SWAN or REC awards and female percentages was observed for Black, Asian, and Mixed races in Tables 2–4.

Table 4 Mixed-effects modelling on Athena SWAN and REC awards.
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When examining contract levels separately, the association between Athena SWAN Silver and female racial minorities was insignificant for each staff level (Supplementary Table 3). In contrast, for academic leaders, REC membership (β = 0.52, 95% CI [0.07, 0.97]) and REC Bronze awards (β = 0.60, 95% CI [0.12, 1.09]) were associated with increased percentages of racial minority females overall compared to non-REC members (Supplementary Table 4). After adding Athena SWAN awards to the model (Supplementary Table 5), these positive associations between REC awards and RM female percentages remained significant (REC membership: β = 0.50, 95% CI [0.03, 0.96]; REC Bronze: β = 0.53, 95% CI [0.01, 1.05]). No association was found in Supplementary Tables 2–4 for Black, Asian, Mixed, and Other races, respectively.

Discussion

Gender and ethnic diversity within higher education institutions have gained attention in recent years thanks to initiatives such as Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter. While this study elucidates some positive strides towards increased diversity, the landscape of diversity, especially at the nexus of gender and ethnicity, remains uneven. While there was an overall increase in the percentage of females and a year-on-year increase in the percentage of ethnic minority females, certain racial subgroups, such as Black females, did not demonstrate consistent progress, and appear underrepresented compared to the wider population. Furthermore, our findings are that the general female trend is for the percentage of academic leaders to exceed the number of managerial leaders, suggesting a progressive pipeline towards greater diversity over time as staff is promoted through the ranks. Notably, Black females are the only racial group in the study that does not exhibit this trend, with very few academic leaders recorded across the study period.

The study found no evidence of competing diversity agendas and showed that higher awards in Athena SWAN or Race Equality Charter programs may have a modest positive impact on improving the representation of female racial minorities. Athena SWAN Silver and REC Bronze awards were associated with increased percentages of racial minority women in senior higher education ranks, although this association was not significant when including both awards in the models. For academic leaders, institutions that were REC members or received a REC Bronze award were associated with higher percentages of female racial minorities compared to non-REC members. Among racial minority subgroups, Athena SWAN Silver had a positive association with the percentages of Other race female staff compared to non-Charter members.

These findings may alleviate general concerns that focusing on gender diversity could hinder racial diversity (Henderson and Bhopal 2022), but it is evident that more work is needed to address barriers faced by certain underrepresented groups, such as Black females. Concerns raised in the recent review of the Race Equality Charter that reporting on racial minorities as a single group may conceal the underrepresentation of specific racial subgroups (Oloyede et al. 2021) are also supported by this study, and the findings highlight that diversity figures should take intersectionality seriously by ensuring racial data is also broken down by gender. The lack of progress in increasing Black female representation in senior ranks is potentially concerning, especially considering the increasing diversity of the general and student populations (HESA 2020, 2023). Future research should further investigate the reasons for this underrepresentation, and diversity initiatives such as Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter should continue to take steps to ensure that institutions are recording progress at the intersection of race and gender.

Limitations

Several limitations of this study should be considered when interpreting the results. First, the study only includes data from a 7-year period, which may not capture longer-term trends in diversity in leadership positions. There are some concerns that the COVID-19 pandemic may have hampered the sectoral advancements made by women (Stadnyk and Black 2020), which would not be reflected in this study due to the period covered. The decision by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to recently remove the prerequisite that institutions seeking funding have a Silver Athena SWAN award was also noteworthy, with the administrators citing an effort to reduce administrative burden (Ovseiko et al. 2020). Any effects of removing the NIHR link would not yet have been seen.

As educational institutions have resumed conventional teaching and research practices, up-to-date work is needed to understand and address gender and racial inequalities in the HE sectors. A longer time frame and the period since the COVID-19 pandemic would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the impact of diversity initiatives on representation in leadership positions. In addition, the study only examined two types of diversity initiatives (Athena SWAN and REC awards) and did not consider other potential factors that could impact representation in leadership positions, such as organisational culture or prior award status. Furthermore, the study does not address the situation facing male ethnic minorities or attempt to determine what levels of representation would constitute proportionate representation for each racial group. Future research could examine the characteristics of institutions to identify barriers affecting the advancement of certain minorities, such as the Black community, in HE.

Recommendations

The results have confirmed the continuous improvements overall in the representation of racial minority women in higher education in the UK. The two types of diversity initiatives examined (Athena SWAN and REC awards) have been shown as potential catalysts to the improvement process, although some subsets may need particular attention. Improvements in representation in higher education can be a slow process, requiring a range of measures, and the commitment and leadership of senior management are crucial for their sustainability. One approach involves enhancing diversity in the hiring process through targeted recruitment efforts and blind review processes, which remove personal information from job applications (Ovseiko et al. 2020). In addition, universities can create a more inclusive and flexible work environment by offering improved work-life balance and family-friendly policies (Manfredi et al. 2019).

Another strategy to promote diversity in the HE sector is investing in mentorship and support programs for underrepresented groups. This can include providing access to networking opportunities, professional development resources, and career guidance (Ovseiko et al. 2020). Universities can also cultivate a more inclusive culture by promoting and celebrating diversity and ensuring diverse voices are heard (Ovseiko et al. 2017).

On a broader scale, national diversity initiatives might benefit from improved data reporting, reduced administrative burdens, and the placing of attention not only on intent but also on outcomes (Oloyede et al. 2021; Campion and Clark 2022). To ensure the compatibility of these mandates, and to address concerns involving diversity at the intersection of gender and race, a closer relationship between the Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter could be beneficial. Given that this study found no statistical evidence of competing diversity agendas and that both initiatives are governed by Advance HE, further streamlining and integrating the two schemes should be feasible.

In conclusion, recognising and improving gender and racial inequalities in the HE sector is a complex and ongoing process, necessitating consistent efforts from institutions, policymakers, and individuals to create meaningful and lasting change. The focus should not be on adding superficial administrative burdens but rather on fostering an institutional mindset to remove structural barriers to equality and diversity. By collaborating in pursuing diversity and inclusion, it is possible to create a more equal and just higher education sector that benefits everyone.