Study: Gender Inequality Persists

Despite an increase in the number of tenured female professors over the last 20 years, gender inequalities in the composition of university faculties as well as discrepancies in salary remain prevalent, according to a report released by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) last week.

The report, titled “Inequities Persist for Women and Non-Tenure-Track Faculty: The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession,” found that men still outnumber women by over two to one on full-time faculties of doctoral universities.

Since the 1980s, the proportion of women at these universities rose from one-fourth that of men to nearly one-half, according to the report.

“Overall, it does show that there has been some progress, but that the progress has been quite slow in women reaching the most senior ranks of faculty,” said John W. Curtis, head of research at AAUP.

Women are also 10 to 15 percent less likely than men to be in tenure-eligible positions, according to the report.

“Women are still disproportionately found in lower-ranked faculty positions, including non-tenure-track lecturer or unranked positions, that tend to pay lower salaries,” the report said.

“It’s an area that we’ve been looking at for quite a while....The report really allows some consideration of whether progress has been made,” Curtis said.

The report also found that the average salary of college professors has not kept pace with inflation for the first time in eight years.

In 2004-2005, professors from all types of colleges saw an average salary increase of 2.8 percent.

Though this is higher than the previous year’s increase of 2.1 percent, an inflation rate of 3.3 percent this year resulted in a decrease of real earnings.

The report also found significant gaps between salaries of professors at public and private institutions. Salaries for professors at non-religious private universities had average increases of 3.5 percent, while the average increase for those at public universities was 2.9 percent.

For every dollar that a professor at a non-religious private university made, a comparable professor at a public university only made 77 cents. This ratio, the same as last year’s, is the lowest since 1970.

Curtis expressed concern that greater numbers of students at public institutions would not have access to the best professors.

“If that gap continues or widens, its going to be more and more difficult to attract the best faculty to public universities,” Curtis said.

The report also found a widening gap in salaries between the presidents of institutions and their faculties. Over the last ten years, presidential salaries have increased much more rapidly than faculty salaries.

“There should be at least some consideration of how much a president is paid with regards to how much the faculty of his or her institution are paid,” Curtis said.

He added, “If the presidential salaries are starting to be out of relation with faculty salaries, then it seems that the comparison with presidential salaries is more like the comparison of CEOs’ salaries. That is not appropriate.”

The report also found an increase in the numbers of “contingent faculty”— non-tenure track full- or part-time professors. Recent data were not available, but AAUP used data from the U.S. Department of Education showing that, as of the fall of 2001, nearly two-thirds of all faculty were not tenured.

The AAUP expressed concerns about the “threat to academic freedom that arises when such a large proportion of the professoriate holds positions that do not provide the security of tenure against dismissal on the basis of controversial teaching or research,” according to the report.

The average salary of full professors at Harvard is $163,162, according to insidehighered.com, which published an article on the report. This ranks Harvard second only to Rockefeller University in the average salary of its tenured professors, according to a graphic accompanying the article.