Many of the gender and racial wage gaps found in society are also seen within higher education, with less diversity among college administrators, faculty, and staff than the United States population as a whole. Postsecondary institutions alone cannot correct the systemic inequities that limit socioeconomic mobility and racial justice, but they can…

The miserable pay of adjuncts and the transformation of colleges and universities into business are no longer foreign concepts in the public realm. What is a surprise, though, is that large companies, such as Target and Starbucks, take better care of their employees than those in higher education. This article focuses on the contrast between the…

It's been said that men are paid more than women are paid over their lifetimes. But what does that mean? Are women paid less because they choose lower-paying jobs? Is it because more women work part time than men do? Or is it because women tend to be the primary caregivers for their children? AAUW's "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay…

According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Great Recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. With a duration of eighteen months, this recession was almost double the length of the average post-World War II economic downturn. Although the worst recession since the Great Depression is now technically over, this analysis…

The author did not expect to be surprised or disturbed by the data from the latest Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) salary survey; however, she was. CASE has been conducting the survey since 1982, so she assumed the findings would mirror her own salary history and those of her peers. While she suspected that older women…

Between 2000 and 2003, the Employment Retention and Advancement (ERA) project identified and implemented a diverse set of innovative models designed to promote employment stability and wage or earnings progression among low-income individuals, mostly current or former welfare recipients. The project's goal was to determine which strategies could…

Using a reduced form version of a theoretical expansion of Hoxby's (1996) education production model, we investigate whether bargaining teachers unions are a boon or a bust to the economy of the state. We anticipate teachers, being in the public sector veiled from competition, are less likely to be efficient. Yet, their product, education,…

The public higher education systems have received significant budget cuts in the 2009-10 fiscal year, with the University of California (UC) receiving $813 million less than in 2007-08, California State University (CSU) receiving $625 million less, and the community college system receiving $812 million less. It is important to understand the…

We analyze the female-male gap in starting-salary offers for new college graduates using data from the annual surveys of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), unique (and proprietary) data that have not previously been used for this purpose. A major advantage of working with a data set on salaries for new college graduates is…

Simple comparisons of average salaries for junior and senior faculty can not indicate whether the differential is declining, because there is no standard for comparison. A simple five-step regression analysis procedure is proposed to investigate salary compression. Analysis of 1990-91 faculty salary data for the University of Minnesota indicates…

Over the past 5 years, the percentage of credit teaching in the California Community Colleges (CCC) system conducted by part-time faculty has grown from 40 to 47 percent. In fall 1999, two-thirds of teaching faculty were classified as part-time. Part-time faculty do not generally receive medical or retirement benefits and are paid significantly…

A university's use of the Automatic Interaction Detector (AID) to monitor faculty salary data is described. The first step consists of examining a tree diagram and summary table produced by AID. The tree is used to identify the characteristics of faculty at different salary levels. The table is used to determine the explanatory power of the…

Using salary data from the "ARL Annual Salary Survey," this paper analyzes 2003-2004 salary data for evidence of salary compression. It reviews the concept of salary compression to explain its relationship to market salary rates and salary dispersion within an organization. The analysis utilizes comparison ratios between salaries and years of…

Issues arising from the increasing use of part-time college faculty as an institutional cost-management strategy are discussed, including implications for faculty joining unions, tenure, governance and administrative hierarchy, faculty workload, quality of education, and public confidence in higher education. The trend is seen as ultimately…

The conceptualization and measurement of key job characteristics has not changed greatly for most social scientists since the Dictionary of Occupational Titles and Quality of Employment surveys were created, despite their recognized limitations. However, debates over the roles of job skill requirements, technology, and new management practices in…