Pay inequity controversies cut across all disciplines and fields in higher education (Meara et al., 2020; Toutkoushian & Conley, 2005). Despite efforts to reduce the wage gap, gender wage inequities persist and continue to adversely affect women across various sectors (Katzeff, 2019; Schieder & Gould, 2016). Since passing the Equal Pay Act…

Salary compression is defined as an issue of inequity when individuals performing the same job responsibilities (and in the same position) have varying compensation levels (Bereman & Lengnick-Hall, 1994; Homer et al., 2020). It occurs when a new employee is hired at a higher compensation than someone with longer tenure within the organization,…

While higher education has been known as the great equalizer, the racial wealth gap of college graduates is overlooked: Among college-educated households (2013) the median net worth was $359,928 for white households; $250,637 for Asian households; $49,606 for Hispanic households; and $32,780 households for Black households. Although MSIs…

This dissertation presents three separate essays. The first two essays explore the gender wage gap and its dynamics in urban China from 1995 to 2018. The first chapter decomposes the gender wage gap based on the observed wage for workers with a precise measure of the hourly wages. The first chapter examines the observed average gender wage gap in…

This qualitative study explores the experiences of mid-level higher education professionals navigating workplace changes post-Coronavirus-19 Pandemic and during the subsequent Great Resignation. The study, framed by the theory of ambiguous loss to interpret the impacts of unresolved losses, underscores the importance of equipping higher education…

The determinants of income has been a key area of research in labor economics, and a large part of this has focused on the relationship between education and wages. This ignores the many other ways that income is influenced. I explore additional avenues by which income is determined. I examine how education affects income by influencing the hours…

This paper builds a model of human capital accumulation driven by increasing specialization of the workforce. Individuals increase the efficiency of time dedicated to human capital acquisition by focusing investments on narrower sets of skills. The evolution of secondary and post-secondary curricula in the United States from 1870-2000 confirms the…

Departure among student affairs administrators in higher education has been an issue for decades (Evans, 1988; Lorden, 1998; Tull, 2006). Rates of departure from student affairs within the first five years of experience are estimated at 50% to 60% (Holmes, Verrier, & Chisholm, 1983; Lorden, 1998; Tull, 2006). However, there is very little…

The present study examined the extent to which the U.S. STEM labor market is stratified in terms of quality of employment. Through a series of cluster analyses and Chi-square tests on data drawn from the 2008 Survey of Income Program Participation (SIPP), the study found evidence of segmentation in the highly-skilled STEM and non-STEM samples,…

This study investigates faculty gender pay equity in higher education. Using data from the 2004 National Study of Postsecondary Faculty and drawing on human capital theory, structural theory, and the theory of comparable worth, this study uses cross-classified random effects modeling to explore what factors may be contributing to the pay…

The growing use of part-time, non-tenure track faculty in higher education has become a nationwide phenomenon. The college-teaching part-time instructor is one who is working for low pay, has little job security, and has few benefits. College part-time instructors' employment is in a contingent state. They do not have the job protection provided…