In 2015 men made up 57 per cent of the research workforce recorded by ERA. It was one per cent less in ERA ‘18

The gender-split is set out in a new Australian Research Council report.

In ERA 18 women accounted for more than half of the workforce in five fields of research and men in 17. The five where women were more numerous were;

* medical and health (52 per cent), * human society (54 per cent), * psychology (58 per cent), * language, comms, culture (58 per cent) and * education (65 per cent).

The top five fields for buckets of blokes were;
* physical sciences and engineering (both 81 per cent), * maths (79 per cent), * computer science (76 per cent) and * earth sciences (74 per cent).

Close to gender balanced fields were; * creative arts-writing and * legal studies.

Demonstrating how women do not reach senior positions, in 2018 there were nearly 9 000 females employed at academic level B and 8 500 men (on head count). However, there were 9 000 male professors and 3000 females. Two-thirds (3 600) of non-academic workers in research are women.

Men also dominate the research-only employment category, with 54 per cent in 2015 and ’18.