Male faculty out-earn females at universities 

By Allison Cross – Vancouver Sun – August 11, 2010, p. B2

Male professors at Canadian universities on average earn higher salaries than their female colleagues—with the discrepancy reaching more than $20,000 at some institutions, according to Statistics Canada.

The average salary of a full-time, male teaching-staff member at the University of Toronto, excluding medical and dental faculty, is $20,362 higher than a full-time, female teaching-staff member, data from 2008 and 2009 show.

The University of Calgary has the second-largest gap, with male teaching staff earning $20,147 more than female professors.

Other schools reported similar discrepancies: Dalhousie University ($16,162) and McGill University ($15,082) are two examples.

University officials say these pay discrepancies aren’t a sign of modern bias but the result of former hiring practices that favoured men, the age and rank of professors and the distribution of men and women in different disciplines.

“When you actually factor in all those variables then, in fact, the gender differences in salary largely disappear,” said Edith Hillan, vice-provost, faculty and academic life, at the University of Toronto.

Fields such as business, computer science and engineering tend to pay more and are dominated by men, while female-dominated fields, such as social sciences and the humanities, pay less.

“In general, when you look at the data, unfortunately, I think it’s probably only about 18 to 20 per cent of all full professors [are] women across Canada,” Hillan said. “In a sense … a lot of it is the result of hiring practices in the past.

“At [the University of Toronto] we’re doing pretty well. Over the last few years, through a very proactive recruitment process, we’ve got up to the 50-per-cent mark in terms of woman hires. But most of them are going to be at junior ranks, because that’s the way the bulk of our professors come in.”

Pay gap

How the gender gap plays out in major B.C. universities.

University of B.C.: $16,559

Simon Fraser University: $13,095

University of Victoria: $11,526

University of Northern B.C.: $7,590