Are all faculty members being compensated fairly? A multi-method approach to investigating faculty salary

Salary disparities between gender and race continue to exist (Baker, Drolet, 2010; Barbezat, 2010; Broyles, 2009; Fransen, Plantenga, & Vlasblom, 2012; Hurtado, & DeAngelo, 2009; Monroe, & Chiu, 2010; Sayers, 2011). The trend of men being paid more for doing the same job as women has been acknowledged and assessed for years, most notably through vigorous empirical studies (Cherry, Durden, & Gaynor, 2011; Grey-Bowen, & McFarlane, 2010; Monroe, & Chiu, 2010; Takahashi, & Takahashi, 2010). This problem exists in both the general labor market and within academia: despite comparative levels of human capital, women are earning less (Carter, 2010; LoSasso, Richards, Chou, & Gerber, 2011; McDevitt, Irwin, & Inwood, 2009). The purpose of this study was to understand if faculty salary is fairly apportioned by gender and race, after controlling for rank, degree, discipline, tenure status, and time in rank. This study\u27s sample included all faculty members at a New England university for two academic years. Data was provided by the provost\u27s office as it is collected on an annual basis by the university. During the 2006-2007 academic period 604 full-time faculty members were employed and included in the study, while during the 2010-2011 year there were 571 active faculty members. To this end, five research questions were probed. The first research question focuses on how much impact gender and race have on salary. To determine this, a multiple regression analysis was developed to test the amount of variance gender and race has over salary. Two models were tested for each academic year. The second research question focused on each individual rank (e.g., assistant professor) and assessed if salary differences existed within rank, and across disciplines between men and women. To assess these differences multiple analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) tests were run for each academic year. The third question investigated if differences within rank between men and women existed; a series of t-tests were used to run this analysis. The fourth question focused solely on faculty members who were hired within the past five years. To run this analysis, a series of segmented t-tests were completed to focus only on these recent hires. The final research question focuses on minority faculty members. First, differences between minority and non-minority professors are analyzed followed by an analysis of minority men compared to minority women. For both of these analyses segmented t-tests were used to understand the interrelationships of minority status and salary. After running the multiple regression analysis on the two datasets, it was found that race and gender did not appear to be significantly associated with faculty salaries for both of these samples. Next, multiple analysis of variance tests were run and it was found that when examining each dataset, significant salary differences between men and women existed for the associate and full professor groups only. To get a better understanding of the most recent hires, the next analysis examined those who were hired in the past 5 years. In both datasets a significant salary difference existed between men and women; women in the Pharmacy department earned significantly more than men. The last two tests focused on minority and non-minority salary differences and minority men versus minority women salary inequalities. Non-minority faculty earned significantly more than minority faculty, only at the full professor level. This finding is true for both time intervals. And lastly, no significant salary differences were identified between minority men and minority women. This is not to say inequalities did not exist, rather not enough statistical power was available to identify statistically significant differences