The Future of Women in Public Administration

• DOI: 10.1177/0095399716685794
• Date: 01 January 2017
• Author: Nicole M. Elias,Maria J. D’Agostino
• Published date: 01 January 2017
• Subject Matter: Guest Editorial

685794AASXXX10.1177/0095399716685794Administration & SocietyD’Agostino and Elias
editorial2017
Guest Editorial
Administration & Society
2017, Vol. 49(1) 4 –8
The Future of Women in
© The Author(s) 2017
https://doi.org/10.1177/0095399716685794
DOI: 10.1177/0095399716685794
Public Administration
journals.sagepub.com/home/aas
The first symposium on women in public administration was published in
1976 and focused on three central topics: discrimination against, underrepre-
sentation of, and underutilization of women in public service. Analyses of
why conditions of discrimination and underutilization existed, as well as
remedies to these challenges, were the crux of the 1976 symposium. Over
four decades later, these issues are still pressing and continue to dominate the
conversation surrounding women in public administration in the United
States. The renewed and continued focus on equal pay, paid family leave, the
absence of women in key leadership positions, women’s health care options,
and reproductive rights remain center stage in the national policy arena,
including the presidential debates. Internationally, gender parity was a prior-
ity agenda item during the 2016 Economic Forum, where only 18% of the
participants present for a discussion about the “state of the world” were
women. As a discipline, public administration continues to explore the ongo-
ing challenges and progress of women with a degree of consensus on the
common obstacles and work to be done for continued progress. However,
what the key challenges and opportunities are for women in the 21st century,
and how we can rethink long-standing issues from diverse perspectives are
now pressing questions demanding scholarly attention. This symposium
highlights what is missing from the conversation and how, in the field of
public administration, we can be leaders on these topics.
The common thread connecting the papers is to identify emerging issues
and diverse research approaches to help us further develop the conversation
on women and public administration. Leading and emerging scholars in the
field were invited to submit articles. In keeping with the purpose of the sym-
posium, rather than setting the themes at the onset, we asked authors to
develop the future direction of research on women and public administration.
The authors have gone beyond the common distinctions of identifying barri-
ers and obstacles, counting the number of women in leadership positions, or
rehashing arguments for greater equality. These manuscripts carve out ways
of considering women, gender, and diversity issues in a broader public
...