An Empirical Study of Gender Discrimination and Employee Performance among Academic Staff of Government Universities in Lagos State, Nigeria

Research has shown that a recruitment policy devoid of gender discrimination enhances employee performance in an organization. Previous studies in Nigeria show that gender discrimination against men and women based on their ethnic, religious and geographical identity is common. This survey, however, focuses on discrimination against women on the basis of gender and performance in government universities in Lagos State, Nigeria. The model used for this study was developed and tested in which one hundred and eighty seven copies of the questionnaire that were administered to respondents as completed by the academic staff of government universities in Lagos State were retrieved. Pearson correlation and regression were utilized for the analysis of the study, and the result showed that managerial roles based on gender discrimination against women in government universities in Lagos State have affected employee job performance negatively. The study concludes that for as long as gender discrimination rather than merit remains the basis for staff employment into positions of authority in Nigerian Universities, enhanced performance is more likely to elude employees and the educational sector in general. Keywords—Academic staff, Employee performance, Gender discrimination, Nigeria, Universities. and objectives is a function of its ability to attract competent workforce irrespective whether they are males or females (2). Workers in an organization, irrespective of their gender, are classified into management/senior employees and others. The management/senior employees are responsible for the overall administration of the organization for enhanced performance. These categories of employees provide the direction through effective leadership to achieve the overall goals of the organization; and this is where discrimination against women is mostly pronounced in Nigerian universities (3). Nigeria, like other countries in Africa, has almost equal number of males and females that make up the total population. For instance, the last Nigeria's national population census that took place in 2006 showed that females were 68.3 million, which is about 48.78 percent and males constituted 71.7 million, which is 51.22 percent of the total population of about 140 million. In such a situation, it is out of place, therefore, to discriminate against women in the area of leadership in organizations, particularly in the Nigerian universities, if enhanced performance is to be achieved (4), (5).