Possibilities and Challenges for Female PhD Students in Tanzania : A field study covering current conditions for Tanzanian women undertaking their PhD degree at the Department of Mathematics, University of Dar es Salaam

Abstract: At the largest university in Tanzania, University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), the gender distribution is unequal. At the University’s Department of Mathematics (DoM), the number of women ranges between 20-30 %. As a PhD degree can pose an important bridge into higher academic positions, the purpose of this study is to discern the current prerequisites for women to complete a doctoral degree at UDSM, compared to their male colleagues. The thesis is based on a field study carried out at DoM, in the spring of 2018. As such, both the formal and the perceived conditions could be examined. During the field study, both focus groups and individual interviews were held. By means of Grounded Theory, a mainly inductive method, the empirical framework obtained from the field research has guided the study and recurrent observations from the local context analysis have shaped the results. As the methodological outset for the study also draws on abductive reasoning, it results in that the analysis is concurrently theoretically guided and based on obtained data. The conclusions from the field research show that the conditions for female and male PhD students at UDSM are not equal. There are policies, quotas and other initiatives introduced in an attempt to level the playfield, however, other policies and social norms that create challenges for women in their strive for an academic career are still in motion. Among other things, as women are expected to be the primary caretaker and there are no support systems in place, the decision to start a family affects women’s studies more than men’s.