Twenty Years of the Power Gap: How 15 Ontario Universities Compare
"Universities have been promising to fix the sector’s gender problem for decades, but women are still under-represented at almost every level, particularly in decision-making roles, among full professors and senior faculty positions, and in the highest-earning echelons. The Globe and Mail collected and analyzed public sector salary records in Ontario going back to 1999 to better understand this lack of progress."
"In order to ensure a fair comparison between the years, The Globe adjusted for inflation during salary-related analysis. When Ontario passed the sunshine law in the 1990s, it determined that only employees who earned $100,000 would be subject to disclosure. That number hasn’t changed, but if it had moved with inflation, the new threshold would be $147,537 in 2019. In calculating data points such as overall representation, The Globe only captured employees who would qualify for disclosure if the threshold had kept pace with inflation."
"The overall story is that, two decades ago, nine out of 10 university employees on the Ontario sunshine list were men, as were nine out of 10 professors, nine out of 10 deans and three-quarters of vice presidents. In the ensuing 20 years, schools made notable progress hiring more women, such that they now represent about one-third of university staff. Representation in leadership has also improved significantly – though the bulk of new hires are concentrated in lower-level, less prestigious jobs."
The Globe and Mail, June 5, 2021: "Twenty Years of the Power Gap: How 15 Ontario Universities Compare," by Chen Wang and Robyn Doolittle
University-Specific Data: Brock • Carleton • Guelph • Laurentian • McMaster • Ottawa • Queens • Ryerson • Toronto • Trent • Waterloo • Western • Wilfrid Laurier • Windsor • York
PWR: work&labour news&research, January 26, 2021: "This is the Power Gap"
Momani, B., Dreher, E. and Williams, K. (2019). More Than a Pipeline Problem: Evaluating the Gender Pay Gap in Canadian Academia from 1996 to 2016. Canadian Journal of Higher Education 49 (1). https://doi.org/10.47678/cjhe.v49i1.188197 (21 pages, PDF)
Locked Out of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Keep Women From Rising to the Top
"Canadian evolutionary biologist Maydianne Andrade is a world-famous spider expert who specializes in the mating habits of cannibalistic black widows. That’s the job she was hired to do. But during her first week as a professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough in 2000, she had a second role imposed upon her, one that continues to steal time away from promoting her research, working in her lab, applying for grants and writing about her discoveries. 'From Day 1, people asked me: 'Can you talk to me about being a woman in science? Can you talk to me about being a Black women in science?'' Prof. Andrade says. 'I did not come into science deciding to be an activist... Gender, race and intersectionality were just dragged into every aspect of my career.'"
"As part of the ongoing Power Gap series, an investigation into gender inequities in the modern work force, The Globe examined Ontario’s public sector salary records going back to 1999. Compared with colleges, hospitals and public health bodies, school boards and Crown corporations, the university sector displayed the clearest lack of improvement on gender. ... At Ontario universities, there has been a significant increase in the overall representation of women. In 1999, about one in 10 six-figure earners were women. In 2019, it was one in three. But those gains have primarily occurred in lower-level, less prestigious jobs."
"So why has change been so slow? Women in academia contend with the same challenges women in other sectors face, including work interruptions like maternity leave and the burden of unpaid care work at home. But female academics also have to battle deeply engrained societal biases that see women as teachers and men as professors. Female professors receive less research funding than men, get less support from their institutions when starting out, win fewer grants and have a harder time getting published. ... Men are more likely to collaborate on research with other men, papers written by men are more likely to be cited by other academics, and women are held to higher standards in the peer-review process, so it’s harder to get published in the first place."
The Globe and Mail, June 4, 2021: "Locked out of the ivory tower: How universities keep women from rising to the top," by Chen Wang and Robyn Doolittle
Hengel, E. (2017). Publishing while Female. Are women held to higher standards? Evidence from peer review. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.17548 (3 pages, PDF)
West, J.D., Jacquet, J., King, M.M., Correll, S.J., and Bergstrom, C.T. (2013). The Role of Gender in Scholarly Authorship. PLoS ONE 8(7). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066212
Photo Source: Lum, F. (2021). Locked out of the ivory tower: How universities keep women from rising to the top [Photograph]. The Globe and Mail. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-locked-out-of-the-ivory-tower-how-universities-keep-women-from-rising/