ISSN: 2249-7196 IJMRR/July 2016/ Volume 6/Issue 7/Article No-2/887-893 Abubakar Idris Hassan et. al., / International Journal of Management Research & Review *Corresponding Author www.ijmrr.com 887 ADMINISTRATIVE BARRIER AND CAREER ADVANCEMENT OF FEMALE ACADEMIC STAFF IN NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES Abubakar Idris Hassan* 1, 2 , Mohd. Nazri Baharom 1 , Rozita Abdul Mutalib 1 1 School of Government, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia. 2 Department of Public Administration, Bauchi State UniversityGadau, Nigeria. ABSTRACT Female participation in formal sector is increasingly growing in both male and female oriented organizations around the world. However, the degree at which female are represented in the higher level of their career is discouraging, especially in Nigerian universities. Using thematic analysis via NVivo 10 software in analyzing interviews conducted on female academic staff. This study has therefore, explore and found that administrative factor; such as excessive workload and lack of political will were barriers to the career advancement of female academic staff in the Nigerian universities. Keywords: Career Advancement, Workload, Political Will, Female Academic Staff, Nigerian Universities. INTRODUCTION International Labour Organization (ILO) (2015) reported that females are not only less represented at a higher position in male dominated occupation but even in the female oriented occupation such as education institution. This argument is practical and eminent in Nigeria, considering the limited number of female vice-chancellors amounting to less than 10, few principal officers in the country universities (Olabisi, 2014; Yusuff, 2014). This degree of female workforce under-representation and their slower speed to the higher positions of management has attracted attention of researchers and practitioners around the world on how to address the issues. This is because women under-representation show that there is female detrimental inequalities in positions in the higher institutions, and thus, limiting the opportunity for females as manpower to contribute their portion to the current and future development in higher education institutions (Rowley, 2013; Olabisi, 2014). Nevertheless, Nigerian constitution, section 17 (3) (a) of 1999 have it that the State(s) authorities shall direct its policy in achieving that; “All citizens of whatsoever group have equal opportunity of securing a suitable job without discrimination”. This provision was further reiterated in section 17 (3) (e) as; “there should be an equal pay for equal work without discrimination on account of sex or any other ground whatsoever.” Similarly, the National Gender Policy (NGP) pledged the reservation of 35% of positions to women across all organizations in Nigeria (Olabisi, 2014). Despite, the constitutional provisions and NGP agreement on gender consideration in positions in the workplace in Nigeria, female academic brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository