The University of British Columbia in Canada is offering all full-time
female faculty a 2% salary raise in an effort to correct gender-based
salary inequities.
In a memo sent to all academics on 21 January, the University of British
Columbia’s (UBC) administration and faculty association explained that
the salary adjustment would address what the university interprets as
“systemic discrimination”.
According to an internal analysis of salaries of full-time tenured or tenure-track professors, women are paid less on average.
“After accounting for the factors of under-representation of females at
the full professor level, experience, and differences in the gender
balance across departments, a pay differential of 2% remained, that
could only be explained by gender,” the memo stated.
UBC’s rare move comes as the state of women in the academy in Canada has received increased attention in media and research.
In a major report by the Council of Canadian Academies released in late
2012, a panel chaired by York University President Emeritus Dr Lorna
Marsden argued that despite two decades of women outnumbering men on
university campuses they continue to face sexism in recruitment,
advancement and pay.
The report was commissioned by the federal government in 2010 after no
women were appointed to the prestigious Canada Excellence Research
Chairs programme.
The price tag for UBC’s across-the-board raise is estimated at C$2
million (US$2 million) this year, but could end up costing more as the
raise is retroactive to 1 July 2010. The decision came after an internal
review of pay differentials was undertaken by volunteer researchers
connected to the faculty association.
Dr Leila Harris, assistant professor with the Institute for Gender,
Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, expressed her appreciation to the
professors who volunteered to conduct the research.
“People spent hundreds of hours of time on weekends and nights on top of
their other responsibilities to do the analysis,” said Harris, who
recently became involved in the faculty associations’ committee on the
status of women.
“These are women who have very strong research careers. It should be
part of someone’s regular duties.” She noted that the UBC administration
was very supportive of the project throughout.
The analysis calculated the overall difference in pay between all male
and female professors as $14,000 on average. But once the fact that
women are better represented in the lower-paid associate and assistant
ranks was taken into consideration, the gap was calculated to be $3,000
on average. Also, some male-dominated disciplines, such as business,
tended to be paid higher.
Harris believes that these two factors suggest other forms of subtle
discrimination. “Both of those distinctions also have important gender
dimensions. Why are women not being promoted more quickly?” she asked.
"Why do we value some male-dominated disciplines over others where there
is stronger female representation?”
Other Canadian universities have distributed salary adjustments to
female faculty. However, UBC is unique in its move to give an
across-the-board pay hike to all faculty.
Simon Fraser University, for instance, launched a review in the 1990s
that considered each professor case-by-case. “The review became a burden
for the professor and the administration,” said Dr Veronica Dahl, a
recently retired computer science professor. “And for many cases it was
an exercise in justifying the original salary decisions.”
Dr Catherine Murray, a communications professor at Simon Fraser
University, added that no university had addressed how being underpaid
for years impacts women’s pensions.
“One of the vexed questions in public sector pay equity in general is
the issue of intergenerational equity, and retroactive pension
correction,” she wrote in an email. “This is surely one of the issues
that has to be addressed, and no university has done so yet in British
Columbia.”
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