Perceived Barriers to Career Progression of Female Administrative Staff in the University of Nairobi

Abstract

The study sought to determine the perceived barriers to career progression of female administrative staff in the University of Nairobi. Descriptive survey design was adopted. The target population was the 527 female administrative staff in the University of Nairobi. Out of the 527 female administrative staff, a sample of 105 women who comprises is 20% of the population was selected through systematic sampling. Every 5th woman in the list was picked. Primary data was collected through the use of a semi-structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as percentages, frequency counts means and standard deviation were used to analyze the data. Findings were presented using frequency tables, charts and graphs. Out of the 105 questionnaires that were distributed to the respondents, 96 were returned completed (81.4%) response rate. The findings were that majority of the respondents (57.3%) had received only one promotion since being employed in the University, (18.8%) had received two promotions, (15.6%) had not been promoted since being employed in the University while respondents who had been promoted three or four times accounted for only (4.2%). This study achieved its primary objective, which was “to determine the perceived barriers to career progression of female administrative staff in the University of Nairobi”. The findings show that the perceived barriers to women career progression are: family related factors; stereotyping; training and development opportunities; and mentoring and networking. The study identified Mentoring and networking to be the major barrier to women’s career progression with an aggregate mean of 4.38, followed by family related barriers with a mean of 3.28, then stereotyping factors with a mean of 2.53 and finally training and development opportunities which had an aggregate mean of 2.34. In order to overcome these barriers and for women to achieve progress in their careers it is recommended that individual female employees should endeavor to overcome the above mentioned barriers to facilitate their career progression. The University should also support female employees in overcoming these barriers through various policy interventions. For further research a similar study could be carried out in other industries to find out whether the same results prevail.