Women account for just one in three professors and visiting professors at Flemish universities, according to new figures released on Tuesday by Statistiek Vlaanderen.

The data for the 2024–2025 academic year highlight a persistent gender imbalance at the top of academia, even as parity has largely been achieved at earlier career stages.

Across nearly 30,800 full-time university posts in Flanders, women hold about half of all positions. Their presence is strongest in administrative and technical roles, where they make up 65 per cent of staff, and among assistants, where women represent 56 per cent.

The picture changes sharply at senior academic level. Two-thirds of professorships—66 per cent—are still held by men. Although universities are slowly moving towards a more balanced workforce, that progress has yet to translate into equal representation in the professoriate.

The age profile of university staff also points to a steep career pyramid. Roughly one third of all employees are under 30, a group dominated by doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers, 57 per cent of whom fall into this age bracket. Among assistants, 42 per cent are under 30.

Professors, by contrast, tend to be significantly older. Almost half are over the age of 50, with most of the remainder aged over 30. Only a small share of today’s early-career researchers will eventually reach the top: just 13 per cent of all researchers currently hold a professorial chair.

European trend

Comparable patterns can be seen elsewhere in north-western Europe. In the Netherlands, women made up 29.9 per cent of professors at the end of 2024, up 1.2 percentage points from the previous year, according to the latest Monitor by the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH). The increase brings the country close to the often-cited 30 per cent “critical mass” seen as a tipping point for lasting institutional change.

Taken together, the figures suggest that gender inequality at the highest academic ranks remains a structural challenge, even as balance improves among doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers. While countries such as Norway and Sweden already exceed 35 per cent female professors, several southern European states continue to lag behind, with women holding fewer than one in five professorial posts. Photo by Feabibliotheek, Wikimedia commons.