Women who take maternity and other leaves progress more slowly through the ranks of school leadership. This is one of the initial findings of a research project co-led by the Alberta Teachers’ Association.
Aimed at examining the experiences of women in educational leadership roles in Alberta, the project found that women tend to be older than men when they are appointed to positions like assistant principal and principal. One of the reasons for this phenomenon is that women more frequently access various caregiving leaves such as maternity leave and parental care during the early stages of their careers.
“This definitely slowed down my career progression,” said Elissa Corsi, an ATA staff officer who is the study’s co-investigator.
Throughout her career, Corsi has worked as a teacher, department head, second language co-ordinator, assistant principal and principal. She took several caregiving leaves during the formative stages of her career, which delayed her entrance into school leadership.
“Many of my male counterparts had much more experience than I did, even though we had started teaching at the same time,” she said.
The survey drew participation from a total of 401 school leaders, ranging from curriculum co-ordinators to superintendents, who answered anonymously. Sixty-eight per cent of the participants were women, 28 per cent were men and four per cent preferred not to say. Eighty per cent of the leaders surveyed were between the ages of 41 and 60; 82 per cent had children and 50 per cent had accessed maternity leave.
Some leaders reported that they’d chosen not to take full maternity or parental leave, either for family, financial or career-related reasons. An issue that the study highlighted is the fact that the time taken for maternity and parental leaves is not counted as pensionable service.
“As a young mom, I did not have the money to pay back the time I took in maternity or other leaves,” Corsi said. “You have to pay it all at once and there was no way we could have pulled together that large of a sum. I will retire later because the leaves have impacted my retirement.”
The study report represents stage one of an ongoing project. The next stage will engage several focus groups throughout the province in an effort to learn how to address the issues found in the survey. ❚
