From the issue dated April 18, 2003
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The Gap That Won't Go AwayWomen continue to lag behind men in pay; the reasons may have little to do with gender biasBy PIPER FOGG A decade ago, women who were assistant professors at doctoral universities
The good news, according to an annual salary survey released last week by the American Association of University Professors, is that despite the recession, average faculty pay nationwide rose 3 percent in 2002-3. But the pay gap between men and women remained about the same. It's not for lack of effort. Some institutions have conducted gender-equity studies to find and compensate underpaid women on their faculties. Others have tweaked their policies to be more sensitive to gender issues. Many have simply tried to recruit more women. In addition, women have sued and won hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements. In the past, researchers explained the pay difference by noting that there were many more men than women in academe and that men have been in some fields far longer. But those reasons are slowly disappearing. Ten years ago, only 14.4 percent of full professors were women; today, the figure is 22.3 percent. And the ranks of women who are associate professors have increased to an even higher level, to 37.9 percent from 28.9 percent. Nevertheless, according to the AAUP survey, women's salaries for 2002-3 are still behind men's in every category. * A man who is an assistant professor at a doctoral institution this year makes an average of $59,538, compared with the $53,851 earned by a woman in the same job, a difference of $5,687. The gap 10 years ago was $3,620, or $4,642 in today's dollars. * A man who is a full professor at a doctoral institution makes an average of $99,502, or $9,000 more than a woman in the same situation. Ten years ago, the man earned, on average, $6,890 more ($8,835 in today's dollars). * The combined average salary of full professors who are men at all doctoral, comprehensive, general-baccalaureate, and two-year colleges with ranks is $88,651, or $9,913 more than their female counterparts. Ten years ago, the gap was $7,160 ($9,181 in today's dollars). * Men who are assistant professors at private institutions make $69,980, which is $8,105 more than women in comparable positions. Ten years ago, men in those positions made $4,170 more ($5,347 in today's dollars) than their female counterparts. Positions of Power Have women really made so little financial progress in academe over the years? Yes, say some professors who insist that the explanation for the gap is simple: Just as it is in other professions, gender bias is alive and well in academe. "Women are still not valued as highly as men, and our salaries reflect that," says Martha S. West, a professor of law at the University of California at Davis, who has been part of an effort to combat what some women see as salary discrimination in the University of California system. Barbara Keating, a sociology professor at Minnesota State University at Mankato who will get $2,200 this year as part of a settlement in a pay-bias lawsuit, says that wage discrimination can be so subtle that it is often invisible. "Students expect women to be more nurturing and available, and if we don't meet those expectations, we're criticized," she says. "In the departments, women are expected to do more service, and I think we get different teaching schedules." Those factors all add up to less time for research, lower student evaluations, and, eventually, lower pay. To attack the problem at its root, she says, requires "getting into the positions of power people who have a commitment to social justice and equity." Not so fast, say others who have studied the issue. Those scholars assert that much of the gap can be explained by variables that are not measured in the AAUP survey, such as choice of field, years of experience, willingness to move, and preference for teaching versus research. Astonishing Gaps Donna K. Ginther, an associate professor of economics at the University of Kansas who studies wage inequality, has found that in the humanities, men make 3 percent more than women do, after controlling for factors like productivity, academic placement, field, fertility, and marriage. But that figure, she says, may be statistically insignificant because the margin of error could be plus or minus 3 percentage points. "I think that gender equity takes time, and given the fact that pay is so closely tied to rank, of course you're going to have a gap," she says. Indeed, for all the hand-wringing over academe's wage gap -- whether it's the result of bias in higher education or broader societal values -- it is still far smaller than in other professions. According to national figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2001, the latest year for which data are available, women earned 76 cents for every dollar men made. In some fields, the gap is double or even triple that of the academic world. For example, according to the government figures, male computer-systems analysts make 26 percent more, male lawyers earn 44 percent more, and male accountants collect 39 percent more than their female counterparts. Judith S. Kleinfeld, a professor of psychology at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, has written widely on gender issues. She says she is "astonished" that the gap is so small in academe. "I thought it would be 20 or 30 percent." The difference may be relatively small because of reverse discrimination by college administrators who are concerned about gender studies that have emphasized the gap, she says. Perhaps the most famous of those was done in 1999 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But it is unclear whether the study took into account women's publications, citations, grants, and other measures of achievement in which, other studies show, men have outdistanced women. As in other professions, Ms. Kleinfeld says, many female faculty members eventually want to have families and to control their hours. "That's their choice. I happen to think it's a great choice," she says. "But of course their pay is going to be much lower." Education Versus Engineering Experts say much of the salary gap in academe can be attributed to the choice of disciplines. Women are often concentrated in lower-paying fields, including nursing and education, while men are more likely to choose science and engineering, where salaries are higher. James S. Fairweather, a professor of educational administration at Michigan State University, says more research funds are available to professors in the natural sciences, where women are underrepresented. And engineers can earn high salaries in industry, so colleges must pay competitively to attract and retain them. Another key factor, say experts, is how willing -- or able -- a professor is to move for a higher-paying job. "Mobility matters," says Ms. Ginther. The more mobile people are, the more likely it is that their salaries will increase, she says. Female academics who are married or have children tend to be more tied to their location than men with families. In some cases, the women are the primary caregivers or feel they need to stay put because of their spouse's job. Women still tend to follow their husbands when they change jobs. Consider one faculty member in the humanities at a public research university who asks not to be identified. She supports three children, a husband, and her mother-in-law. Seven years ago, someone at her institution conducted an informal equity study that identified a group of female professors as underpaid by about $5,000 to $6,000. She was one of them. The university gave her a $500 "equity raise" in response. She calls the raise "ridiculous." She considered positions at other universities around the country. "But I really didn't have the energy at the time to go after those," she says. "I was barely making it because of children, a family, and coming up for tenure." Some female scholars feel that academe places too much value on factors that favor men. One assistant professor, who works in the social sciences at an Ivy League institution, worries that the evaluation process at her university stresses quantity of work. "It may not take into account [that] some people may not be able to work 80 hours a week," says the assistant professor, who has had two children in her six years on the job. "I can't go to every single conference and go to every single lecture." Another downward tug on salaries for women is their focus on teaching, according to some experts. Studies have shown that women teach more and do less research than men, says Mr. Fairweather. "Those who spend more time teaching get paid the least," he says. "Do they choose that role? Are they assigned to it?" Mr. Fairweather doesn't know. Unexplained Gap A full understanding of the wage gap in academe is "going to require a new type of data collection," suggests Robert K. Toutkoushian, executive director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the University System of New Hampshire. For example, to learn more about the importance of negotiation, he says, researchers would have to talk to professors, department chairmen, and deans about their salary decisions. Without such information, there would be no way to tell whether gender bias had caused the gap. Even so, Laura W. Perna, an assistant professor of education policy and leadership at the University of Maryland at College Park, says the possibility of discrimination is a cause for concern. "It could be that there's some discrimination because some of the difference is not explained by reasonable predictors of salaries," she says. "Every institution should look carefully at their salary-determination processes." The University of Maine System did just that. Officials completed a gender-equity study of all tenured and non-tenured faculty members in the seven-campus system in 2001. The study found that 199 of the 451 female professors were underpaid compared with their male peers. The women were given raises that averaged about $2,000 a year. Tracy Bigney, executive director of human resources for the Maine system, says she doubts there was intentional discrimination. "You can't really identify a cause from just the data," says Ms. Bigney. Yet the system has adopted a new review process in which an official at each institution evaluates salaries for new professors and those receiving promotions, looking specifically for discrepancies that cannot be explained. Playing Themselves Down Ms. Perna's studies have suggested that during hiring and promotion decisions, departments are more systematic and careful about setting salaries according to established criteria. When it comes to merit raises, however, the process becomes more subjective. The social scientist at the Ivy League university, for example, says that for years she had no idea how her merit raises were calculated. "No one ever tells you what goes into that process." You get your raise, and a brief letter from the chair, and that's it, she says. "There's no explanation." Her university, like many, asks professors to evaluate themselves as part of the review process, and most faculty members know evaluations are used to help determine salary increases. She eventually realized that part of the problem was her failure to play herself up more in the self-evaluation; her modesty had led her to lose out in the raise pool. "Women tend to downplay themselves," says the social scientist. Her male colleagues, by contrast, are more natural self-promoters. Now, she makes a conscious effort to emphasize all of her accomplishments. Negotiating the Offer Ms. West, at UC-Davis, says that while merit raises are certainly an issue, differences that emerge between men and women in starting packages are just as important because all raises are normally calculated as a percentage of the base salary. Ms. West says that women are less prepared than men to bargain when setting their starting salaries. "When I got my offer [at Davis], I was so thrilled and honored, I accepted my job immediately," she recalls. "I didn't even think to bargain. Maybe we lack self-confidence, so we undersell ourselves." Ms. West suggests that women shy away from seeking more money because they believe in the merit system and think, "If we work hard, we'll be rewarded," she says. "That's only part of the competitive game in academia. Women don't like to play the game, the political game." Having a low starting salary can have lasting consequences. An associate professor in theater studies at a medium-size public university complains that she was paid several thousands of dollars less for doing the same administrative job as a male colleague. In 1997, when she took over as head of the theater department, she was paid an additional $7,400 a year. The previous chairman, a man, had received a $10,000 stipend, she says. She complained, but the acting dean told her that the stipend was calculated as a percentage of base salary. Her dean gave her $2,300 more for teaching a course that chairmen do not normally teach. Still, she thought, why should she do more work and get paid less than her predecessor? As more female professors look out for their interests and cast aside qualms about self-promotion, such questions may become less and less common. "It's been more of an issue in higher education because women faculty members have brought it up," says Donna E. Shalala, the president of the University of Miami. "Because as women got to be full professors, women looked out for their sisters."
http://chronicle.com Section: The Faculty Volume 49, Issue 32, Page A12
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Copyright © 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education