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ABSTRACT
Universities and other institutions of higher education in Nigeria see themselves as liberal and open-minded. They support social movements that encourage principles of democracy and social justice, yet their mode of governance is male dominated and patriarchal. This study, therefore, identified the causes of gender inequality in academia and the implications on the academic development of females in the university system. This study was considered necessary because of the observed anomaly in the composition of academic staff in Nigerian universities. Data for the study were obtained from both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were obtained through the in-depth interview of sixty (60) purposively selected male and female academic staff occupying key positions in three (3) Federal universities located in southwestern Nigeria. The study revealed that the recruitment and selection practices in the universities neither stressed male ideology nor discriminated against women; rather merit was the yardstick for acceptance into the profession. It was found that lack of mentoring, poor remuneration, women's lack of interest in academia, family responsibilities, the lengthy period of training, and the ideology that women should have low career aspirations due to traditional roles ascribed to them, accounted for the observed disparity in academia. The implication of this disparity on the academic development of women is the general reduction in their research output and the perpetuation of their low status in academia. The study concluded that appropriate institutional adjustments and affirmation action programmes are necessary to meet women's demands of equality and improve retention.
Keywords: Gender Inequality; Academic Development; Academia; Nigeria; University
INTRODUCTION
In spite of the advances which women have made in many areas of public life in the past two decades, they are still a long way from participating on the same footing in academia as men. The global picture is one of men outnumbering women in research and publication. Female Deans and Professors are a minority group, while female Vice-Chancellors are rare (Poole, 2005).Women in Nigerian universities hold less than 35 percent of academic posts. They are mainly represented in the lower and middle level academic positions and their participation relative to men decreases at successive levels. Despite the fact that the Nigerian university system is over sixty years old, there are still evidences of...