Available Studies 

• University of Victoria Faculty Association Status of Women Committee. Equity and University Governance. University of Victoria. 1993.
• Adjin-Tettey, E., Aragon, J., Brown, L., Hallgrímsdóttir, H. K., Lesperance, M., Lipson, R.. Summary Report of the Joint Committee on Gender Pay Equity at the University of Victoria. University of Victoria. July 2014. FINALGET_SummaryJuly14th2014.pdf (uvic.ca).

The equity governance study was conducted by suggestions of the Status of Women committee. The purpose of the study was to gather information on the faculty experience, and to assess the factors that lead men or women to participate in university governance. It is different from many of the other studies, since it does not focus on salary equity. For the 2014 study, a joint committee on the investigation of gender pay equity at the University of Victoria (GET Committee) was created to undertake a statistical investigation of the relationship between gender and pay at the UVic among University Faculty and Librarians, and if such pay inequities are found to be present, to make recommendations for their correction.

The first survey included all female faculty with full-time positions in the 1992/93 academic year. A sample of male faculty were matched to the female faculty on the basis of years since highest degree, academic rank, and academic division. The total respondents was 278, half men and half women. The second survey consisted of 225 faculty and professional staff who participated on search committees between 1990 and 1992. In this study there were 50 females and 175 males. Finally, six confidential interviews were conducted with 3 men and 3 women. In the 2014 study the dataset came from the office of institutional analysis at UVic, it included 699 tenured/ tenure-track faculty, 60 Assistant Teaching Professors/Teaching Professors, and 24 librarians. Tenured, tenure-track, and assistant and teaching professors were all merged into one data set. The librarian analysis was conducted separately. Faculty members from the Division of Medical Sciences were excluded. All stipends were stripped from the salary data; the salary data for all individuals appointed at less than full-time was grossed up to estimate full salaries.

The 1993 study was a combination of surveys and confidence interviews. As such there was no use of statistical models. There were some questions asked for identification purposes, such as faculty, but the main goal was to survey administrative experiences. Respondents were asked if they had had admin experience at a previous university, admin experience at UVic, Reasons for not being chosen for an admin position, and reasons for refusing a nomination for an admin position, as well as circumstances in which the respondent would consider an admin position. The search committees were asked which level of admin they were searching for, reasons given for the choice of a successful candidate, reasons for not choosing a candidate.

In the 2014 study, multiple regression analysis was used on faculty, and a separate regression was run for librarians. The researchers used a novel approach in grouping faculty and department. Rather than use department or faculty, observations were grouped into “units”. These units roughly fall along faculty lines, but some departments were given their own treatment. The researchers also decided to avoid collinearity between experience and other “time variables”, and only experience was used since it had the longest time frame recorded. The faculty model was run in levels and the logarithm of salary. Salary was regressed on unit, gender, and experience. For librarians salary was regressed on gender and experience.   

The results of the 1993 study are simply the tabulation of responses to the survey. The authors of the report did not include an analysis of the results. In the 2014 study, linear and log-linear models showed that gender appears to have a cumulative effect on salary, in that the male faculty members appear to gain more salary per year of experience than female faculty members, however female faculty with fewer than 6.5 years of experience exhibited a higher salary than male faculty when other factors are controlled. Since the result depends on a dynamic factor, there is no “gap” estimated per se, but rather two formulas for salary adjustments, one for men (with less than 6.5 years experience) and one for women (with more than 6.5 years of experience). For librarians the study was unable to draw firm conclusions regarding pay inequities and gender due to small sample size and lack of other controlling variables.

The 2014 study produced recommendations for salary adjustments, one for male faculty members and one for female faculty members. Essentially, male faculty with less than 6.5 years of experience will get an increase, and female faculty with greater than 6.5 years of experience will get an increase. The correction was suggested as having the result of evening out the difference between genders that accumulates with experience.