Title:
A Study of Gender Wage Disparities at a Progressive Liberal Arts College
Author(s):
Weston Berry
Author Email:
wberry1@unca.edu
Department:
ECONOMICS
Faculty Mentor(s):
Melissa Mahoney
Abstract / Summary:
Although more women are employed full-time as faculty than men at the University ofNorth Carolina of Asheville, the greatest concentration of female faculty are employed inthe lowest rank as a lecturer. On the contrary, male faculty are concentrated at thehighest rank as a professor. Gender wage inequality in higher education persistsprimarily through occupational segregation and systematic sorting based on gender,where females are concentrated in lower-paying positions relative to men. In 2022,according to the American Association of University Professors, full-time female facultymembers made 82 cents for every dollar male faculty earned. By highlighting indicatorsdriving wage differentials at our school, my study will determine whether the results areconsistent with gender wage gaps at similar universities. Women are often steered intodisciplines that traditionally pay less such as the Arts and Humanities whereas morelucrative disciplines, such as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, tendto be male dominated. Using data from the UNC Salary Information Database, I analyzeearnings differences among UNCA faculty by sex using a series of ordinary leastsquares (OLS) regressions. I control for age, race, departmental division, and rank.Gender was determined utilizing the Gender API which sorts names by gender throughnormalizations. Race was determined by employing the Namsor API which classifiesnames by race using artificial intelligence to transcribe data through name morphology. Ihypothesize that a gender wage gap is likely to exist among faculty at UNCA and will bemore prevalent based on rank and departmental division due to occupationalsegregation between departments and systematic sorting based on gender amongfaculty ranks.
Publication Date:
Dec-12-2023
Documents: