DOES SEX STILL MATTER? NEW EVIDENCE FROM THE 1980s

Abstract

Recent analyses of gender based salary differentials among University faculty have focused on colleges and universities which are quite different from those used in earlier (pre‐1975) studies. To facilitate comparisons with previous studies we examine gender earnings differentials during the 1983–84 academic year at Kent State University, a school similar to those studied in the pre‐1975 period. Our results suggest that after controlling for differentials in productivity‐related characteristics and market influences, there is little evidence of gender based salary discrimination at Kent State during 1983–84.

Critical modeling principles when testing for gender equity in faculty salary

“…Rank has consistently been shown to be the single best predictor of salary (Osborne, 1990;Raymond, Sesnowitz, and Williams, 1988;Stacy, 1983). Stacy and Holland (1984) argue that given the typical differences in the proportions of males and females at each rank, ignoring rank more than doubles any apparent salary disparity.…”

“…Previous research (Raymond, Sesnowitz, and Williams, 1988;Regan, 1990) suggested that individuals who either previously held administrative appointments other than department chair or school director (e.g., deans) or who initially joined the university with an administrative appointment as department chair would re-ceive higher levels of compensation due either to their administrative contributions to the university or external market forces extant at their hiring. Thus, ADMIN was coded 1 for those faculty who held a prior administrative appointment at BGSU other than department chair and for those individuals initially hired as department chairs or school directors.…”

“…This is due to the fact that the quadratic term is the value on the original predictor variable squared, and the correlation between X and X 2 is typically very high, especially in narrow ranges of X. Centering procedures in which the mean value is subtracted from each observed value of the original predictor variable can be applied to quantitative predictor variables to minimize these multicollinearity problems without changing any statistical inference decisions (Aiken and West, 1991;Neter, Wasserman, and Kutner, 1989). Five of the case studies reviewed examined or recommended examining curvilinear relations (Borjas, 1983;Ferber and Green, 1982;Haberfeld, 1992;Raymond, Sesnowitz, and Williams, 1988;Weiler, 1990).…”

“…For example, a salary factor of .96 for mathematics implies that the national average salary for faculty in mathematics is 96% of the national average salary of all faculty in all disciplines/major fields. This single continuous salary factor variable has been recommended and used in previous faculty salary studies (e.g., Raymond, Sesnowitz, and Williams, 1988;Simpson and Rosenthal, 1982). Department chairs provided the specific codes to classify all faculty within their department.…”

“…The statistical test was significant, X2(4) = 86.948, p < .000, and results indicated that error variance increased with the size of predicted salary. AYSALARY was therefore reexpressed using the natural log transformation (LOGSALARY), as recommended and used in previous salary discrimination studies (Baker et al, 1988;Chasin, Goldfarb, and LaNoue, 1989;Raymond, Sesnowitz, and Williams, 1988;Taylor, 1988;Wetton, 1990).…”