Professorial Gaps
An interesting little piece in The Southern (meaning Southern Illinnois) on the subject of the gender gap in academia. I just love it when real world observations concord with theory: especially when the observations are recorded by someone who doesn’t know the theory, thus no bias to the observations.
Looking at the difference in the number of male and female professors the reporter sees that the imbalance has sharply reduced in recent decades. This is consistent with our own view that there certainly was direct discrimination in the past and that there is not (or at least a lot less) now. He also notes that women earn the majority of college degrees these days (although men still the majority of higher college degrees) and correctly notes that this will also skew the results (as to become a Professor you must have one of those higher college degrees). We even see the attribution of at least part of the gender gap being to childbirth and care, with the average 3.5 years out of the labor force having an effect. All of this is right in line with the generally accepted economics of the subject.
However, the one little further part that our EQSQ personality tests can explain is also there, even though the reporter is unaware of it. There’s a shortage of (for example) female economics professors : as we know that’s something of a male brain subject so we would actually expect this. There’s also a shortage of men in nursing: again, as we know, a very female brain subject. Isn’t it just great when the real world accords with the theory?
February 22nd, 2007 at 6:16 am
To no surprise, I’m sure, there is also a gender pay gap in academia. According to the American Educational Research Association, while past experience accounted for some of the pay difference, there was still a pay gap after that was accounted for. You can see the results at http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/04/13/gender. The study found that looking at such factors as experience decreased the size of the gap, there was still a 6.8 percent difference between men’s and women’s salaries (before the allowances, the gap was 21.8 percent). The study looked at 2,758 faculty members from 79 disciplines in 1999, revealing that in 70 of the 79 disciplines, the male mean salary was higher. And this difference was sometimes drastic: over $12,000 more in English literature; nearly $25,000 in chemical engineering; and over $23,000 in economics. The comparisons looked at men and women during all stages in their careers, revealing the most dramatic differences in senior faculty members with higher salaries. There was no explanation for the gap.
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:36 pm
That intelligence is not a surprise, no, I agree. Controlling for experience (and thus for breaks for child rearing and so on) does indeed make the figures valuable though. That last little bit that is unexplained, well, how about this?
The gap is greater the greater the seniority: we have valid intelligence telling us that there most certainly was direct discrimination in academia (as also in much of life) only a few decades ago. So those currently at the top of the totem pole started their careers when there was indeed such discrimination.
Those currently at the bottom have faced none, or at least a great deal less, so the pay gap is smaller. I don’t insist that this is correct, only offer it as an explanation. If it is correct though, at least we can console ourselves with the idea that we’re moving in the right direction.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I’d like to second and add to Lucy’s comment on the all-too-present pay gap in higher education with results from a separate survey. According to the 2006 Gender Equity Indicators, compiled by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the pay-gap in higher education is not only a function of tenured vs. non-tenured professors, but also present in professors of the same rank. This survey found that female professors earned two to nine percent less than their equally-positioned male colleagues. For more on this discrepancy, as well as a thoughtful discussion of the newly appointed Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust (whose emotional intelligence is hopefully much greater than her infamously empathy-deficient predecessor, Larry Summers, there’s a good article on campus progress.org.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:53 pm
ahof, thanks for that intelligence. I’d think that that piece of intelligence actually supports my point here, rather than undermines it. Both here and in my other writing I pretty much assume that the gender pay gap is really about the fact that women tend to (not all do of course) take career breaks to have and to raise children. That absence from the labor market for a few years would be expected to impact upon incomes in later years: if it’s as small as 2-9% then I’d probably want to say that I consider the problem solved.
Larry Summers was indeed empathy deficinet as you say: he’s an economist after all, a highly systemizing profession.