| dc.description.abstract | Studies carried out on women in career occupations have continued
to show that women are under represented in management positions
world wide. Kenya has not been an exception. Studies carried out in
Kenya show that women in management positions in the civil
service have continued to be a minority group. The institutions of
higher learning particularly the universities in Kenya have presented
the same trends. The purpose of this study was to study the career
mobility of women administrators in Kenyan universities. The
objectives of the study were:
1. To explore the opportunities of career mobility of women in
university administration.
2. To establish career progression of women administrators within
the university administration.
3. To establish whether there is a relationship between socto -
demographic factors such as education of parents, occupational
status of parents, educational level of spouse and women's progress
in university administration.
The literature review covered five different parts. The first part
dealt with factors that had been identified as having an influence on
career mobility of women administrators. Educational qualifications
and training of women was found to be part of the solutions towards
increasing work opportunities and placement in administrative
(vi)
jobs. Women were to attain certain qualifications if they were to
acquire managerial positions in Kenyan universities. The research
findings indicated that higher levels of educational attainment
correlate positively with higher levels of employment and placement.
Socio-economic background had a lot of influence on
occupational aspirations according to the literature revieved.Gender
issues in relation to career mobility showed that there are factors
that are based on societal assumptions about men's and women's
roles that affected career advancement for women. Personality
characteristics such as effective leadership skills, team work and a
positive self concept contributed to good management. Lack of self
confidence and a negative self image created by soctalisatlon were
negative traits that did not contribute to good women managers.
Age is an important factor when it comes to promotion. The
studies showed that as a member of staff grew older, their salary
increased and they moved up the occupational career ladder. This
pattern while apparent for men was less pronounced for women.
Women were clustered in job categories that had a limited career
path, The last part of the literature review covered the conceptual
framework. The variables selected for investigation were education
and training, personality characteristics, gender and age. All the
factors were discussed in relation to career mobility.
The research instrument used for data collection was a
questionnaire. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of
314 respondents out of a population of 386men and women who
were working in administrative positions in Kenyan universities.
The sample was selected from both public and private universities
in Kenya. Purposive sampling was used to select a representative sample
for the study. Frequency distribution tables were used to
show the distribution of respondents of private and public universities
in the sample. Demographic data was shown in relationship to
gender.
Information about career goals in relationship to gender Is
discussed. Characteristics that are thought to be important by both
male and female respondents are considered because they reflect
societal outlook towards work related issues in relation to gender.
The last part of chapter 4 presents the results of testing eight
hypotheses. Chi square test of significance was used to test whether
there was any significant relationship between career mobility of
women administrators and variables such as gender, age, work
experience and career goals. Analysis of vartance (ANOVA) was used
to test the significance of F- ratio at 0.05 level. The variables that
were found to influence social-economic status such as educational
level of parents and educational level of respondents were tested
with ANOVA.
The ChI square test was used to test whether there was a
significant relationship between career mobility and selected
variables at 0.05 level of confidence. The results indicated that there
was no significant relationship between gender, marital status. socto-economic
background, and career mobility.
The variable that was found to have a significant statistical
relationship with career mobility of the women respondents was
educational qualifications ,age, work experience and educational
level of spouse.
The research revealed that women holding senior management
positions in the universities are very few when compared to their
male colleagues. Results showed that if women want to be promoted
to senior positions, they need to achieve high academic and
professional qualifications.Women university administrators had
less work experience and had not joined non formal associations
related to their work.Further research on leadership qualities of the
successful women administrators in the universities and areas of
spectalisation that would help the upcoming women to improve in
management skills and improve their qualifications would be
useful | en |
