Re: FWD. salary gap

Barbara J Tavares (btavares@hawaii.edu)
Mon, 12 Jan 1998 08:39:23 -1000


I find this discussion very illuminating, and it raises a question for me
on affirmative action and various recruitment and retions efforts
targeting under represented groups.

At what year would one peg the onset of affirmative action? I realize it
is more of a phase-in than a starting line. But Title IX is 25 years old,
Civil Rights Act
even older, and WEEA is getting up there. And yet we are still waiting to
see parity move from the most junior ranks into positions of tenure and
leadership for various ethnic groups as well as females. Incidently,
similar dynamics exist in every area of employment I am aware of--not
only higher education.

Any speculation on what year we should begin counting from and how long
this may take? I realize there is no concrete answer to either part of
the question, but patience has its limits.
***************************************************************************
Barbara Tavares
University of Hawaii
<btavares@hawaii.edu>
808/956-6194

On Wed, 7 Jan 1998, Robert Weverka wrote:

> AnneM wrote:
> > Here's the URL for a database of College and University salary levels,
> > by rank and gender. There is also a section on representation of ethnic
> > minorities.
> >
> > http://www.ed.asu.edu/aaup/ntlf.html
> >
> > Not surprisingly, women consistently make less than men of the same rank
> > (there are a few exceptions, but they have very small n, and are not
> > statistically significant. Conversely, all cases with large n show a
> > genuine male advantage).
> >
> > But what caughy my eye was that the *percentage* difference between male
> > and female salary level is not so different across the ranks. I expected
> > (over-optimistically, it seems) that the gap would be closing since more
> > women are now filtering into professorships. I figured there was no hope
> > for the senior levels, but at least for assistant professors, there would
> > be less of a gap. Not so.
>
> Unfortunately, the web cite you reference tells us nothing about how they got
> their numbers. I suggest you have a look at the National Center for Education
> Statistics (NCES).
>
> The ratio of male to female professors differs by discipline, and some of the
> salary difference is explained by the difference in salaries by discipline.
>
> NCES has data on profs by discipline.
> There is a 20% difference between Engineering and Humanities profs salaries.
> Unfortunately its not broken down by sex.
> http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/d96/D96T228.html
>
> Breakdown by sex and rank but not discipline is here
> http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/d96/D96T229.html
> year and | All |Profes- |Associate|Assistant|Instruc-|Lecturer|
> sex | | sor |professor|professor| tor | |
> Male | 51,228 | 64,046 | 47,705 | 39,923 | 30,528 | 35,082
> Female | 41,369 | 56,555 | 44,626 | 37,352 | 29,072 | 31,677
>
> This contradicts your statements about salary differences across the ranks of
> proffesors.
>
> Another point of interest is the age distribution.
> Affirmative Action programs geared to rectify imbalences fall strictly on the
> young new profs. The old profs are tenured and its difficult to change the
> ratios there. NCES also gives the age breakdown of professors.
> http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/d96/D96T225.html
> Under Age 30, There are as many females as males. For whites the numbers
> are identical. For Asians, there are twice as many men as women and for
> Blacks there are twice as many women as men. Note that in the general
> population there are more men than women in this age group, so equal
> representation would have more male than female professors. Apparently, in
> this age group males are under represented in faculty positions.
>
> -Ted
> weverka@optivision.com
>


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