More Than a Pipeline Problem: Evaluating the Gender Pay Gap in Canadian Academia from 1996 to 2016

Abstract

This article measures gender pay gaps in Ontario’s public post-secondary education sector from 1996 to 2016 using the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Data. We find gaps widening among all faculty ranks. Men were paid on average 2.06%, 2.14%, and 5.26% more than their women colleagues for all employees, university teaching staff, and deans, respectively. We also conduct a Blinder- Oaxaca decomposition to measure the source of gendered salary differentials. Pay gaps persist during this time period despite controlling for the literature’s most common explanations, including the “pipeline effect.” Our results additionally imply that women’s years of experience in academia do not mitigate the observed pay gaps. Suggestions for future research include increasing the scope of our study to factor in finer details such as labour productivity.

It’s Not Just a Pay Gap: Quantifying the Gender Wage and Pension Gap at a Post-Secondary Institution in Canada

“…In 2019, women in academia in Canada made, on average, $10,500 less than their male counterparts (as calculated from data from Statistics Canada, 2020b), providing them less money each year to accrue funds in private savings plans relative to men, and fewer earnings to contribute monthly to occupational pension plans. Furthermore, an analysis of Ontario data for 1996-2016 found that men in the professoriate are more likely than women to be promoted, and the pay gap increases as women faculty members move up the ranks (Momani et al, 2019). In our analysis of data from King's, beginning with a $8,771 difference in starting pay (less than the average identified by Statistics Canada [2020b]), we calculated the long-term effects of the gender wage and pension gaps by simulating three different career scenarios: (1) women and men faculty topping out at the rank of associate professor, (2) women and men faculty both achieving the rank of full professor, and (3) the more typical scenario of men achieving the rank of full professor while women faculty top out at the rank of associate professor.…”

“…Although a number of universities have made strides toward closing the gap in their respective institutions (e.g., at the University of Manitoba; see Shirle, 2019), more work is needed to not only eliminate such disparities but to address the consequences of such differences over time. Although ample literature documents the substantial gender wage gaps in Canadian universities (e.g., Canadian Association of University Teachers [CAUT], 2018;Doucet et al, 2012;Gatto et al, 2018;Momani et al, 2019), as has research in institutions elsewhere (e.g., Currie & Hill, 2013), few have researched the extent to which such gaps impact professors' pension benefits over the life 75 course. The purpose of this study is to not only examine the long-term effects of the gender pay gap, but also differences in pension earnings by gender, using a case study of a Canadian post-secondary institution.…”

Association of Physician Characteristics With Perceptions and Experiences of Gender Equity in an Academic Internal Medicine Department

“…Compelling evidence of a gender gap in remuneration, academic promotion, and harassment has existed since at least 1990 . Despite 23 years of numerical equality between women and men in medical school, contemporary Canadian data demonstrate gender disparities in pay, leadership, and harassment for women physicians and academics . These data suggest that additional factors, beyond the number of female physicians available to enter leadership tracks and the awareness of the gender gap, contribute to ongoing inequities.…”

The gender citation gap: Why and how it matters

“…In what follows, I consider how the gender citation gap may contribute to the well-established gender pay gap with a focus on the Canadian context. In Canada, the gender wage gap between academic men and women persists across universities (Warman et al, 2010;Doucet et al, 2012;Brown & Troutt, 2017;Frederickson, 2018;Momani et al, 2019; for a detailed review please see e.g., Millar & Barker, 2020). Considering the gender wage gap among faculty members at the University of Manitoba, Brown et al (2011) find that the gap has remained largely unchanged in magnitude over 10 years (1994)(1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003).…”