Gender, Clinical Subjects, and the “New” Fee Structure: Perhaps an accident?

So it begins...

...the cuts. This was probably inevitable and predictable. The University of Leads is restructuring subjects in the School of Healthcare and if the unions are to be believed 3/4 of the subject areas in the School are under threat. While this looks to be the pruning of subjects related to and peripheral to medicine, it is an interesting case and the driver for change can be made more understandable (but no less dismaying) by three “unrelated” facts.

1) The “new” fee regime restructured the landscape of higher education in the UK.

 

2) In the “new” fee regime clinical subjects ended up with the least change in income.

3) The clinical subjects are dominated by women in the UK.

Except, these facts are not unrelated. They are related by the law of unintended consequences. Problem is that unintended consequences have a way of moving in biased directions.

 

i) The restructuring of UKHE is discussed here.

ii) The problem of clinical subjects is this: In January of 2013, HEFCE announced a slight revision to the price group structure (table 2 of the linked document is the useful information). This means that clinical subjects (Price Group A) enjoyed a 7.3% increase overall from 2010/11 to 2013/14. A useful inflation calculator may be found here. Unfortunately the Bank of England data stops last year. However, between 2010 and 2012 inflation in the UK averaged 4.2%.yr. That means that support for Price Group A (Student fees + government) which was £17784 in 2010/11 would be expected to be £19310 for 2012/13. It was, however, less one year later in 2013/14 (about £19100).  

The short statement of the problem of clinical subjects is: they are losing ground to inflation. Compare that 7.3% “rise” to other subjects: Price group B over 17%, Price Group C 21%, and Price group D 34%.

iii) UK Higher education is not Gender neutral territory. This document has the data. It is terribly unequal. Among support staff, women make up 78.6%. Among full time academics they make up 38.6% There is an issue here.

Women Dominate (>50%) the following subjects: Education, Health and Community Studies, Modern Languages, and Staff and student Facilities, Clinical Medicine, Nursing and Paramedical Studies, Psychology and Behavioural Sciences and Veterinary Sciences. Men dominate the rest. It is worth noting that the last four (Clinical Medicine, Nursing and Paramedical Studies, Psychology and Behavioural Sciences and Veterinary Sciences) employ over half of all female academics in the UK.

  

So here are the awkward questions...

 

Was there underlying gender bias in setting the price of clinical subjects?

Is anyone taking a very hard look at what is happening to clinical medicine and nursing programmes in the UK? The UK is facing skills shortages in some of these areas. Is there a pernicious gender bias at the heart of these shortages.