All things being equal: observing Australian individual academic workloads

Abstract

The achievement of greater gender equity within Australian universities is a significant issue for both the quality and the strength of Australian higher education. This paper contributes to our knowledge of academic workloads, observing individual workloads in business faculties. A multiple case study method was employed to observe individual academic workloads. Two regional universities were selected for this research on the basis of their senior staff profiles. Multiple sources of evidence were used to gather teaching and research workload data for all faculty members. Differences in workloads were not always evident between genders. Our results suggest that universities that are over-represented with females in senior academic positions when compared to the national average achieve equity in workload. Universities that are underrepresented with females in senior academic positions do not achieve workload equity with male academics producing more research and coordinating more teaching.

Keywords:

• academic
• business
• case study
• diversity
• gender
• workload