New research by David Blackaby, Alison Booth, and Jeff Frank reveals that a female
academic economist in the UK – of the same ability and productivity as a male academic
economist – still gets paid 9% less on average.
Their study, published in the February 2005 issue of the Economic Journal, suggests that
much of the explanation for this lies in ‘outside offers’. Comparably qualified men get
significantly more offers than women for positions in other universities. What’s more, when a
man gets an outside offer, his current university is much more likely to match the offer with a
salary increase.
Numerous studies have shown that women continue to be paid less than men. But it is never
entirely clear that these studies compare like with like. By looking at academic economists, and
adjusting the results for personal characteristics such as age and marital status, these
researchers find that – on a like for like basis – female academic economists in the UK earn
11% less than men.
But uniquely, the researchers also have good measures of ability and productivity in terms of
class of undergraduate degree, publication records, records in getting outside funded research
grants, and teaching quality. For example, on a like for like basis, women publish less than
comparable men.
But even taking all these factors into account, women still get paid 9% less than equally
productive men. This is of course significantly less than the headline figures often quoted in the
press, but it does take full account of any productivity differences between men and women.
Some of this pay gap is due to the lower rates of promotion for women compared to equally
productive men. But even within an academic rank (such as ‘lecturer’ or ‘professor’), women
get 5% less than comparable men.
The researchers also have information on career breaks and non-academic experience. While
taking a career break lowers future salary levels, this has no significant impact in explaining
the gender gap. Neither does differential non-academic experience. But what does explain
some of the gap is outside offers.
Interestingly, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examined the status of its female
faculty and found that outside offers, and the university response to them, played a major role
in maintaining disparities, just as in this study over all UK universities.
A senior manager in a UK university explained how outside offers were an objective way of
determining pay rises, and therefore justifiable to remuneration committees. But this ignores
the problem that arises if women (or ethnic minorities or other groups) receive fewer outside
offers.
In the case of women, this may be because they are viewed as ‘loyal servants’, who cannot
easily move due to family commitments. They get fewer outside offers since other universities
do not believe that they will take the job, and – if they do get an offer – their current employer
does not respond with a matching increase since it does not think they will actually move in
any case.
The persistence of pay gaps for women and ethnic minorities – given the strong stance of the
law and the apparent support for equal opportunities by employers such as universities – is
surprising. This research shows an important mechanism for the continuance of such gaps and
the subtle effects of ‘unintended consequences’.
The only way to ensure the ending of discriminatory pay gaps is to have proper, unbiased,
independent measures of productivity in a well-designed remuneration system. For publicly
funded institutions such as universities, these systems need to be monitored and perhaps
even run from outside.
ENDS
Notes for Editors: ‘Outside Offers and the Gender Pay Gap: Empirical Evidence from the UK
Academic Labour Market’ by Alison Booth, Jeff Frank and David Blackaby is published in the
February 2005 issue of the Economic Journal.
Booth is at the University of Essex and the Australian National University; Frank is at Royal
Holloway College, University of London; and Blackaby is at University of Wales Swansea.
For Further Information: contact David Blackaby on 01792-602103 or 01792-295168 (home:
01792-367380; fax: 01792-295872; email: d.h.blackaby@swansea.ac.uk); or RES Media
Consultant Romesh Vaitilingam on 0117-983-9770 or 07768-661095 (email:
romesh@compuserve.com).