Gender Diversity in Canadian Public Universities

DBRS Morningstar has published a commentary titled, “Gender Diversity in Canadian Public Universities.” This report looks at the participation of women in the academic workforce and the potential of diversity to affect a university’s credit ratings.

As publicly funded institutions, Canadian public universities have social relevance and responsibility. These universities are generally very close in credit quality to the provincial governments that provide a large proportion of their funding. In its assessment of a Canadian public university's credit ratings, DBRS Morningstar considers seven environmental, social, and governance credit risk factors. We consider gender diversity in the context of higher education under the social factor of Human Capital and Human Rights. Gender diversity could also potentially have some relationship with Corporate Governance.

We found that the majority of the boards of governors of the 16 DBRS Morningstar-rated universities are chaired by women. However, women represent less than half of the aggregate board composition, including the board chair. Further, our analysis shows that the proportion of women university presidents is still lower for this set of institutions aggregating at roughly 31% (i.e., only five of these 16 universities are led by female presidents). Multiple government- and industry-led initiatives have aimed to make Canada's universities more equitable and diverse but, despite recent, rapid progress, the goal of gender parity has yet to be reached. “In addition to public commitments to improving diversity, development and training of women for leadership roles and ensuring support structures are in place for women leaders could prove to be a pathway to gender diversity,” said Aditi Joshi, Vice President, Public Finance.