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Guide to Analyzing Salary Inequities Published
The second edition of Paychecks: A Guide to Conducting Salary-Equity Studies for Higher Education Faculty will be published this winter. The guidebook, a joint effort of Lois Haignere, Inc., United University Professions (UUP), and the AAUP, is a resource for those who want to conduct studies of potential salary bias or to interpret the results of such studies. Findings that reveal inequities at a college or university are often used as a basis for making salary adjustments.
"We’ve been battling the problem of gender-based salary inequities for more than thirty five years, and there’s still a problem," says Maita Levine, former chair of the AAUP’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Academic Profession. At the University of Cincinnati, where Levine is professor emerita of mathematics, the AAUP chapter commissioned a salary analysis that showed that over two hundred women were underpaid compared with their comparably qualified male peers. "We have an article in our collective bargaining agreement that forbids discrimination based on gender, so we have presented the case to an arbitrator and hope to have the issue resolved that way," Levine says.
Campuses without collective bargaining chapters also increasingly rely on salary analyses to correct pay disparities. "Many faculties and administrations are showing renewed interest in exploring gender-related pay inequity," says Mary Gibson, the current chair of the AAUP’s women’s committee. "The time and the climate seem right for publication of the revised and updated Paychecks."
The guidebook’s purpose is twofold: (1) to help nonstatistician faculty, administrators, and policy makers understand the issues involved in salary analyses, and (2) to provide the technical information needed by researchers conducting multiple-regression salary reviews. Readers will learn how to detect whether gender and race bias exists, select a salary-equity consultant, understand different perspectives on how bias occurs and ways to remedy it, and accomplish many other tasks related to ensuring equity in faculty salaries. Examples and case studies are provided throughout the guidebook.
Lois Haignere, the principal author of Paychecks, has conducted hundreds of salary studies in universities, government agencies, and unions. Together, the guidebook’s other contributors— Bonnie Eisenberg, Donna Euben, Robert Johnson, Dorothy Kovacevich, and Yangjing Lin—have years of expertise in issues related to salary equity in higher education. For information about ordering Paychecks, and about the discount available to AAUP and UUP members.
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