Should ageing academics be forced to quit? | Jenny Rohn

Oxford's decision on compulsory retirement raises pressing questions about fairness - and what is best for academia as a whole

Increasing diversity in academic science is a thorny issue that has exercised its practitioners for more than a generation.

In the life sciences, for example, a pool of equal numbers of men and women at the undergraduate, PhD and even postdoctoral level soon becomes skewed, with about 80% of professors being male. This "leaky pipeline" has persisted for nearly thirty years, despite a raft of well-meaning efforts including, in this country, the Athena SWAN initiative. Racial diversity is another area where science doesn't score well.