AAUP found that women hold 24% of fulltime, tenure-track professor positions in the United States even though (thanks in large part to Title IX) they earn more than half of all graduate and professional degrees. On the other hand, women are overrepresented in non-tenure track faculty positions, which offer less compensation and job security. Institutions that are closest to parity are those that grant associate degrees while institutions that are farthest from it are universities that award doctoral degrees.
None of this is bad news is particularly surpising to anyone who spends time in or around a college or university campus. But I had no idea that salary disparity was this bad:
In 2005-06, across all ranks and all institutions, the average salary for women faculty was 81 percent of the amount earned by men. This comparison has remained virtually unchanged since the AAUP began collecting separate salary data for women and men faculty in the late 1970sEven comparing only full time professors to other full time professors, women still earn 88 cents on the dollar. AAUP suggests these disparities are influence by the salary disparity between doctoral degree universities, which pay higher salaries, are less likely to hire women than community colleges, which pay considerably less. Women are also underrepresented among senior faculty, who are compensated more. It continues:
Although it is not appropriate to attribute this remaining differential to discrimination on the basis of this evidence alone, the statistical analyses clearly leave a series of questions unanswered: Why is the proportion of women faculty holding doctorates smaller than the proportion among men? Why are women less likely to obtain full-time tenure-track positions? Why are they less likely to be employed in research universities? Why do women faculty generally spend more of their time on student advising and committee service than do men? Why do positions in the disciplines in which women faculty are concentrated generally pay less? Why are women less likely than men to earn tenure and promotion to full professor?These are all good questions that need probing before post-feminists declare that the glass ceiling in education has been shattered.
Why do they earn less on average at every rank than their male counterparts?
Although the AAUP study is a good one, it would be nice if the AAUP and Roger Bowen would practice what they preach. The senior staff at AAUP last year had three women and four men. Now, it is one woman and four men. Men did not replace the females. Their positions were "reworked" and two women were hired at lower level positions. The men of AAUP earn much more than the women. The men are promoted and the women are hired at subordinate positions. The AAUP does not have any minority employees in senior positions.
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