The local dynamics of and disparities in gender balance among professors at a Norwegian university

There has been a long-standing concern in Western countries regarding the underrepresentation of women in top academic positions.However, research and policymaking addressing this issue often neglect local variations and the importance of examining departments, reflecting a widespread assumption that the institutional and cultural causes of underrepresentation are uniform across universities.This article challenges this assumption by using statistical information from a national database to analyze the gender balance of professors at the departmental level at the largest university in Norway and how it has changed over time.The analysis shows that the gender balance of professors varies significantly between departments within the same faculty.In some, women professors are a small minority; in others, they are the majority.The rate of change also differs.These variations contradict the belief in a uniform set of causes for the underrepresentation of women.The article contributes to existing research by demonstrating the critical role of the local context of departments in understanding the situation of women academics.