Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Report Reveals Gender Gap in University Professors' Salaries

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Report+reveals+gender+university+professor+salaries/3382088/story.html

Male professors at Canadian universities on average earn higher salaries than their female colleagues — with the discrepancy reaching more than $20,000 at some institutions, according to numbers released Tuesday by Statistics Canada.
The average salary of a full-time, male teaching-staff member at the University of Toronto, excluding medical and dental faculty members, is $20,362 higher than a female teaching-staff member also working full time, says data from 2008 and 2009.
The University of Calgary has the second-largest gap, with male teaching staff earning $20,147 more than female professors.
The report, drawn from the annual University and College Academic Staff Survey, lists the full-time teaching staff salaries and salary scales at universities and colleges in Canada that have a staff of 100 or more.
Other schools reported similar discrepancies: University of British Columbia ($16,559), Dalhousie University ($16,162), Royal Military College of Canada ($16,035) University of Western Ontario ($15,933), University of Lethbridge ($15,675) and McGill University ($15,082).
University officials, however, say these pay discrepancies aren't a sign of bias but instead the result of former hiring practices that favoured men, the age and rank of professors and the distribution of men and women in different disciplines.
"Certainly, when you actually factor in all those variables then, in fact, the gender differences in salary largely disappear," said Edith Hillan, vice-provost, faculty and academic life, at the University of Toronto.
Fields such as business, computer science and engineering tend to pay more and are dominated by men, while female-dominated fields, like social sciences and the humanities, pay less.
"In general, when you look at the data, unfortunately, I think it's probably only about 18 to 20 per cent of all full professors (are) women across Canada," Hillan said. "In a sense . . . a lot of it is the result of hiring practices in the past.
"We actually think at (the University of Toronto) we're doing pretty well. Over the last few years, through a very proactive recruitment process, we've got up to the 50-per-cent mark in terms of woman hires. But most of them are going to be at junior ranks, because that's the way the bulk of our professors come in."
While there may be more women than ever teaching at universities, Hillan said, many are assistant or associate professors — positions that pay less than a full professor job.
"The one thing I would have to emphasize is you can't look at gender in isolation," she said. "You've got to consider other variables as well."
These numbers reflect that 20 years ago, most teaching jobs at universities were occupied by men, said David Robinson, from the Canadian Association of University Teachers.
"A lot of women in the profession are now making their way through," he said. "That's one of the biggest distortions that causes an overall gender gap."
The association does its own analysis of pay discrepancies between the two genders, whereby they factor in age and rank, Robinson said.
Their findings indicate the pay gap is currently about five per cent.
"Women are making about 95 to 96 per cent of what men are making," he said. "That's still a significant gap when you think about it and we can't explain it."
Universities and colleges with smaller salary gaps include Acadia University ($5,472), St. Thomas University ($4,429) Universite de Quebec a Montreal ($3,772) and Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique ($2,033).
SIDE:
How the gender gap pays out in other schools:
University of Victoria: $11,526
University of Northern B.C.: $7,590
Simon Fraser University: $13,095

University of Alberta: $14,877

University of Saskatchewan: $9,807
University of Regina: $9,453

University of Winnipeg: $9,835
University of Manitoba: $13,904

Carleton University: $13,354
University of Ottawa: $7,899
University of Windsor: $11,719

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