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The Effect of Gender and Minority Status on Salary in Private and Public ARL Libraries
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The Journal of Academic Librarianship journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jacalib
The Effect of Gender and Minority Status on Salary in Private and Public ARL Libraries Quinn Galbraitha,⁎, Erin Merrillb, Olivia Outzenc a b c
Department of Social Sciences and Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA Department of Instruction, Media and Digital Services, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA Research Assistant in Department of Social Sciences and Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Pay disparity Wage gap Gender Minority Academic libraries Research libraries Public vs private Research
The purpose of this study was to identify pay disparities within gender and race using private and public Association of Research Libraries (ARL) libraries as a lens. In this study, 44 ARL libraries participated, leading to 1099 usable responses to our survey. The findings indicate that race and gender pay disparities are larger at private libraries than at public libraries. However, disparity levels at both public and private ARL libraries are smaller than the national averages for all professions and continue to shrink.
Academic libraries vary in their institutional type: some are part of private institutions, while others are part of public institutions. Even though the aims, goals, and daily workflow of these two library types tend to overlap, there are social perceptions that one institutional type is preferable to the other. Factors such as university size, funding, community involvement, and sports culture are often considered by library faculty seeking employment. Due to the differences between the institutions, focused research on these differences may add valuable insight for library administrative staff as well as librarians seeking careers at the university and college levels. While it is generally believed that private universities pay their faculty higher salaries, we hypothesize this may not always be the case when considering other employee benefits. In terms of librarians' wages, we expect greater wage gaps between genders and between races to be found at private institutions because of the private nature of the salaries. Conversely, because of public institutions' transparent salaries, we expect to find greater equality in pay. As a visiting program officer for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the primary researcher was granted access to 35 years of the annual ARL Salary Survey data. Although ARL publishes the data annually in aggregate form, the raw data has not been analyzed in recent years to calculate an adjusted wage gap. The terms raw wage gap and adjusted wage gap are used frequently throughout this paper to describe wage differences between genders and among races in public and private institutions. The term institution is used to describe
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universities, colleges, and research libraries. In order to contextualize the differences in salary, the gaps are reported as what one group earns as a percent of another. A gap of 100% means that there is no pay difference between two groups. The lower the percentage, the larger the wage gap. The raw wage gap, in this context, is a comparison of mean salaries. For example, if the mean male salary was $100,000 and the mean female salary was $95,000, then the raw gender wage gap would be 95%. While this number is informative, it does not establish the existence of a disparity in pay. Differences in human capital could explain why a group appears to be paid less. Therefore, an adjusted wage gap should be calculated to control for such differences. The adjusted wage gap is a calculation of what a person in one group makes compared to a person with the same job characteristics (e.g., positions, years of experience, institution) in the comparison group. This report focuses primarily on the salary differences between librarians at public institutions and librarians at private institutions. Specifically, this report examines ARL's 2014 salary survey data but also presents data from 1980 to 2014 to show salary trends by race and gender. To further contextualize the current state of the salary gap between public and private institutions, we begin by providing a brief overview of pay disparities between genders and between races in the United States, pay disparities in libraries, and pay disparities between public and private institutions.
Corresponding author at: Harold B. Lee Library, 1223 HBLL Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (Q. Galbraith).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.10.005 Received 19 July 2017; Received in revised form 11 October 2017; Accepted 23 October 2017 0099-1333/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Galbraith, Q., The Journal of Academic Librarianship (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.10.005
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Literature review
found that the pay disparity between white workers and black and Hispanic workers increases as the workers age: Asian workers tend to make more money than their white counterparts do, but when white workers reach the age of 55, they begin to make more money than Asian workers do (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015c). The calculator does not include detailed occupational data in relation to race and income.
Pay disparities in the United States Gender As of 2015, female workers in the United States were making 79.6% of what male workers were making (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015a). In other words, the gender pay gap is approximately 20%. While the figure 79.6% represents the overall national average of women's earnings compared to men's earnings, a, the gap varies based on the level of educational attainment. For example, in 2015, females with advanced degrees made 73.5% of what their male counterparts made, whereas females with less than a high school diploma made 80.3% of what their male counterparts made (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015a,b). Additionally, the older the woman, the larger pay gap she will experience. This trend could be the result of many factors, such as older women having higher levels of educational attainment or having been in the workforce for a longer time, meaning there was more time for the gap to grow. Females ages 16 to 24 experience the smallest pay gaps, making 91.3% of what their male counterparts make; females ages 25 to 34 experience a larger gap, and so on, with the oldest age group—females age 65 and older—making a mere 73.8% of what their male counterparts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). When broken down by industry, females in the education and health services industry, which include librarians, make 77.5% of what their male counterparts make; across all industries, females make roughly 80% of what males make (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). This data indicates that female librarians are likely experiencing greater gender wage gaps than women in other industries who earn 80% of male earnings throughout the United States. However, other statistics may tell a different story. For example, according to an interactive map showing pay statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, female librarians make $49,829 on average, while male librarians make $53,751 on average, indicating that females make 92.7% of what their male counterparts make in the librarian profession (Adamy, Vo, Ma, Van Dam, & Thompson, 2016). We believe that statistics differ on the gender wage gap among librarians because of differing controls in data analyzation. For example, while some researchers control for gender and years worked, others control for gender only. Thus, the variables they control for, effect the overall outcome leading to small variations in statistics. When examining the gender pay gap by state, levels vary greatly. At the top is the District of Columbia, where Females make 86.3% of what their male counterparts make—a percentage that is 6.7% higher than the national average. At the bottom is Wyoming, where females make only 53.16% of what their male counterparts make—a percentage that is 26.4% lower than the national average and that indicates female earnings are a little more than half of males' earnings (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015b).
Pay disparity in libraries Gender There seems to be a consensus in the research that there is a pay gap in libraries; however, the experts disagree on the size of the gap. A potential reason for the varying estimates is that some researchers may be using raw data, while others are using adjusted data. Statistical data show that as of 2016, library science is considered one of the lowest paid professions requiring a master's degree, with librarians making roughly $57,700 midcareer. Conversely, the top 11 professions requiring a master's degrees offer salaries that are at least double a librarian's salary; the lowest earning of the top 11 professions, an operations manager, makes an average of $121,000, and the highest earning of the top 11 professions, an entrepreneur, makes an average of $139,000 (Forbes, 2016). The lower salary of librarians may be attributed, in part, to the female-dominated nature of libraries and society's tendency to pay females less. Indeed, even predominantly female professions are not immune to pay inequity. Although women represented 83% of the library workforce in 2014, women working as full-time librarians made 7% less than their male counterparts made (Dorning, 2016). Yet, since 1972, the opportunities for females to enter leadership positions have increased, resulting in a declining pay gap between the genders (Sweeper & Smith, 2010). For example, women are playing a more predominant role in academic libraries, especially as they occupy a higher percentage of seats on the ARL board of directors (Sweeper & Smith, 2010). Likewise, female librarians are outpacing females in management positions in other fields, indicating a progressive change for women in the field of library science (Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009). Researchers have noted changing trends over the past several years, with the majority of library directors being female and the average salary of a female director surpassing that of a male’ director's salary in top research libraries. Racial minorities The literature is clear that there is a large difference between the number of racial minorities and whites in library and information science (LIS) programs; the relationship between minority status and salary of LIS graduates is less clear. For example, researchers found that while there is a $10,000 gap between the salaries of males and females, data indicates that blacks and whites make close to the same amount, and Asians earn more than whites do (Morgan, Farrar, & Owens, 2009). The results of Morgan et al.'s (2009) study, however, are inconclusive pertaining to the racial wage gap in academic libraries because LIS graduates may enter professions other than librarianship and pay varies greatly from profession to profession. Dewey (2009) asserted that issues stemming from racial inequality have substantially improved as a result of initiatives and programs sponsored by ARL.
Racial minorities In general, minorities in the United States have lower household incomes than do non-Hispanic whites. An average black or Hispanic household earns roughly $30,000 less a year than the average white household does. In contrast, an average Asian household is likely to make $10,000 more than the average white household—and roughly $40,000 more than an average black or Hispanic household—in a calendar year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015c). Much like women, black and Hispanic workers experience greater pay gaps as their educational attainment increases; there is a noticeable pay disparity between white and minority workers who have received a bachelor's degree or higher (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015b). Asian workers, on the other hand, are likely to make more money than their white counterparts after receiving a bachelor's degree or higher (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015b). A data calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics can be used to identify pay disparities by age. In doing so, we
Public versus private institution pay gaps Little research shows that there are pay disparities in public academic institutions and in private academic institutions; however, it is well-known that pay differs between public and private institutions, with employees in private institutions making substantially more (Brainard, 2011; Byrne, 2008). This trend has existed for over 40 years and has become more pronounced in the early 2000s (Rippner & Toutkoushian, 2015). 2
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Methodology
Many attribute this pay gap to public universities' tendency to have better insurance and retirement benefits. However, a closer look at wage dissemination via research conducted by Zoghi (2003) shows that this assumption is not accurate; Zoghi stated the following:
Survey creation and sample selection In order to better understand and explain the gender wage gap among academic librarians, we employed two sets of data. The first data set came from ARL's 2014 Salary Survey, which includes limited demographic information and salaries of all ARL library employees. The second set of data was from a survey we conducted to explore factors that potentially affect the gender wage gap and that were not accounted for in the ARL data. The survey was created after a thorough review of the literature. The survey consists of approximately 55 questions, which were reviewed and approved by our university's Institutional Review Board. This original survey was then customized to reflect the unique organizational circumstances and language at each of the participating libraries. Libraries were selected through emailing the directors of 110 ARL libraries across the United States and Canada to invite them to participate in a survey that would “measure variables that relevant literature indicates may explain gender and minority salary difference.” As an incentive, we offered to provide each participating school with a custom report that compared the school's survey results to the collective results. Of the 110 ARL libraries invited, 44 agreed to participate in the study. Once a director agreed to participate, the director appointed a contact at the library. Working with the contact, we identified the appropriate terminology to use with each individual institution in effort to distinguish employee rank within the institution. For example, some institutions use the term “tenure” to designate a higher ranked employee while others use a ranking system such as “Librarian 1, Librarian 2, Librarian 3.” Thus, the contact responses were used to customize each survey to its corresponding institution. We then emailed a letter of invitation and a link to the customized survey to each director or contact, asking them to forward the letter and survey link to each of the institution's professional librarians. To protect the integrity of the data, we confirmed that the participants were professional librarians by asking each participant to affirm that he or she met criteria specific to the library, such as being a tenure-track employee or a faculty member. To encourage survey completion, librarians were given the opportunity to enter a drawing for an iPad Air 2. In order to keep responses anonymous, participants could enter the drawing through clicking on a link at the end of the survey; the link took respondents to a separate survey, where they entered to win the iPad.
Using several potential amenities, such as retirement and insurance benefits, student–faculty ratios, library size and school calendar, I test whether faculty salaries are affected by these amenities. In most cases, the effects are either insignificant or altogether wrong-signed. This suggests that rather than using amenities in place of wages, both wages and amenities are offered as recruiting tools. Changes in the level of amenities over time do not explain the relative wage trends observed. (p. 56). Such gaps prove problematic for public institutions seeking to retain and hire faculty, who often chose to work for private institutions with higher pay.
How pay secrecy affects pay for female employees Because pay transparency is present at public institutions but not at private institutions, it is important to note the research surrounding it. In a study conducted in 2014 by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a nonprofit research organization associated with George Washington University, the researchers found that nearly half of all employees in the United States face some sort of restriction about disclosing their salaries to coworkers. In the same study, 62% of female respondents and 60% of male respondents who work in the private sector reported that they were discouraged or prohibited from disclosing their salaries. However, only 18% of women and 11% of men in the public sector reported constraints about revealing their pay. The data show that pay secrecy is a much more common practice in the private sector than in the public sector. Pay transparency or fewer restrictions regarding the discussion of pay does not necessarily require employers to release all current salaries, but it does give employees the right to discuss their salaries without the fear of repercussion. The Institute for Women's Policy Research (2014) stated, “While there may be no direct link between pay secrecy and pay inequality, pay secrecy appears to contribute to the gender gap in earnings”, (p. 1). Although the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protects workers' right to discuss their wages, the majority of employers continue to “formally or informally forbid” the exchange of information concerning income (Kim, 2013, p. 281). Another leading argument designed to explain the pay gap between men and women is that women lack the ability and desire to negotiate a fair salary. Eriksson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University, conducted an experiment on how gender affects the propensity to initiate a negotiation of compensation. In the study, “28 percent of the female participants initiated a negotiation, compared to 42 percent of the male participants” (Eriksson & Sandberg, 2012, p. 414). Some may argue that women are victims of discrimination because negotiating is stereotypically considered a masculine behavior; however, a woman's salary may be influenced by her decision or ability to negotiate. Thus, some may suggest that learning to negotiate more effectively for higher compensation can help women close their individual wage gaps. Scholars argue that information asymmetry between employers and employees prevents employees from efficiently negotiating their salaries. Pay secrecy has an especially negative impact on women's abilities to negotiate salary because they face repercussions from challenging social gender norms and being perceived as too aggressive (Eisenberg, 2011). The literature has yet to cover the effects of pay secrecy policies in ARL libraries.
Model specifications We obtained usable survey data from 1099 participants at 44 institutions. In comparison, the ARL data includes 9337 responses from 119 institutions. Responses to our survey were automatically filtered out if the participant did not indicate his or her sex or salary. Additionally, the data from the few respondents who were deans and directors were removed, primarily for consistency with the ARL Salary Survey data, which does not include information on these individuals. To increase the integrity of our method, we assessed salary data from our survey and the ARL survey only if the data was from full-time employees. Of our sample, 71.06% were female and 28.95% were male; in the ARL's sample, 62.87% were female and 37.12% were male. The original model that was used to measure salary differences between racial minorities and white was defined as ln(salary) = α + X · β + ε. In this model, ln(salary) represents the natural logarithm of the respondents' yearly salaries, α represents the intercept of the equation, β is a vector of coefficients that tie each of the explanatory variables to salary, and ε is a vector of random error terms. X is a matrix of explanatory variables that could affect respondents' salaries. In the matrix, this model included years of experience, years of experience squared, institution worked at, job position, type of librarian (law or 3
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medical), sex, and minority status. Dummy variables were used for each institution and job position. The standard errors were clustered at the institutional level and used to compute confidence intervals and determine significance of variables. Clustering was used to allow for arbitrary correlation among respondents at the same institution, but assume independence between institutions. The coefficient for the minority variable was then converted to a percentage by the formula 100 − 100 ∗ exp(βminority). This model was used to estimate the wage gap in each of the 35 years represented in the data. The model used to analyze ARL's Salary Survey data, controlled for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, and sex. In addition to the variables previously mentioned, a second model using the survey data accounted for marital status, children, and highest degree earned. These variables, which were only some of the many variables available in the survey, were chosen after a review of the literature and consultation with a labor economist. The analyses of both the ARL data and our survey data included regression techniques to estimate the effect of gender on salary. For both datasets, standard errors were clustered at the institution level to allow for arbitrary error correlation in each school. This step was completed because the hypothesized factors (e.g., hiring culture) causing a gender wage gap should remain relatively consistent for all observations at a given institution. Without cluster correction, the standard error associated with the estimated coefficients would be too small, giving a false sense of precision.
Fig. 1. Difference between minority librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
Results Public versus private salary gaps: minorities According to the 2014 raw ARL data, minority librarians at public institutions make 96.89% of what their majority counterparts make, while minority librarians at private institutions make 94.69% of what their majority counterparts make. These findings indicate that minority librarians at private institutions experience a pay gap that is 2.20% greater than the pay gap at public institutions. However, when institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, job position, type of librarian (law or medical), sex, and minority status in the X matrix were controlled for, the gap between minority and majority decreased, as did the gap between public and private institutions. The 2014 adjusted ARL data show that minority librarians at private institutions make 100.22% of what their majority counterparts make, while minority librarians at public institutions make 99.55% of what their majority counterparts make. When adjusted, the confidence intervals overlap, indicating that the differences between public and private institutions are insignificant for minority salaries. Minority salaries (as a percentage of their majority counterparts' salaries) at public versus private institutions were also explored as a trend from 1980 to 2014. Fig. 1 displays the raw wage gap for minorities at public and private institutions. Fig. 2 displays the adjusted wage gap from 1980 to 2014. The raw data displayed in Fig. 1 suggests that there was a substantial difference in the way public and private institutions paid minority librarians before the early 2000s. However, when examining the adjusted data in Fig. 2, the wage gap between public and private institutions shows to have been insignificant over a period of 34 years.
Fig. 2. Adjusted difference between minority librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
males decreases; the gap between public and private institutions decreases as well. Once adjusted, the 2014 ARL data shows that female librarians at public institutions make 98.71% of what their male counterparts make, while female librarians at private institutions make 96.44% of what their male counterparts make, equating to a 2.27% difference between public and private institutions after adjusting the data. Thus, the adjusted data indicates that the gap is slightly more than 2% lower than the gap suggested in the raw data. While 2% may seem minimal at first glance, when considering that the 2014–2015 ARL average salary was $77,000, a 2% difference is roughly $1540 a year for female employees. While the raw data may suggest that female librarians at public institutions are shorted 2.35%, or $1810, a year, the adjusted data suggests that females are actually shorted 1.29%, or $993, a year. Therefore, the gap is actually smaller and more manageable for human resource managers to overcome. Likewise, while the raw data for private institutions suggests that the female librarians are shorted 6.87% ($5290) per year, the adjusted data shows that female librarians at private institutions are actually shorted 3.56% ($2740). Libraries should be capable of closing this gap by reviewing salary procedures. Female librarians' salaries (as a percentage of their male salaries) at public versus private institutions were also explored as a trend from 1980 to 2014. Fig. 3 displays the raw gender wage gap at public and
Public versus private salary gaps: gender According to the 2014 raw ARL data, female librarians at public institutions make 97.65% of what their male counterparts make, while female librarians at private institutions make 93.13% of what their male counterparts make, equating to a 4.52% difference between public and private institutions. However, when the data is controlled for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, sex, and type of library (law or medical), the gap between females and 4
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Discussion While there are many variables that contributed to this research, such as marital status, years worked, or number of children, the pay disparities within gender and race at public and private libraries is the focus of this paper. The implications of the analysis results are primarily positive for research libraries overall. For example, minority status does not seem to affect salary levels in either public or private research libraries. When looking at the raw data, there is approximately a 3.5% wage gap between minority librarians and white librarians. After controlling for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, sex, and type of library, we found no significant differences in minority wages between private and public universities. The narrowing gap indicates positive growth in minority salaries, regardless of the type of institution. In recent years, minority librarian salaries in private ARL libraries exceeded the salaries of white librarians. While private institutions slightly favor minorities more than public institutions do, the difference in pay for minorities at public and private ARL institutions is extremely minimal. In contrast, we found a substantial difference between male and female librarian salaries at both public and private universities. In public ARL libraries, the average female librarian is paid 1.3% less than male librarians, but in private ARL libraries, the gap nearly triples to 3.5%. The average salary of librarians in private ARL libraries was $78,794.76 in 2014, which equates to women making, on average, $2757.82 less per year than their male counterparts make. If the average salary increase is 2% a year, females are approximately 18 months behind their male counterparts in their pay. Although the percentages appear to be small, the inequality is startling when presented in terms of actual salaries. The data shows a plateau in the wage gap in private libraries starting in about 1997. Thus, this plateau shows little progress being made in terms of closing the wage gap; the gap has been fairly stagnant over the past two decades—a trend that could be attributed to repercussions of pay-secrecy policies in private ARL libraries. As mentioned in the literature review, female employees are less inclined to negotiate their salaries. The stark difference between the trends in the wage data for female librarians at public and private institutions suggests that females in the library industry would be more financially secure in accepting a job at a public institution. Based on the adjusted data, there is less discrimination at public ARL institutions than is suggested by the raw data. Even if a female librarian initially has a higher starting salary at a private institution, it may be better to accept a job at a public institution to continue receiving salary increases in the position.
Fig. 3. Difference between female librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
Fig. 4. Adjusted difference between female librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
private institutions. Fig. 4 displays the adjusted gender wage gap during the same timeframe. Fig. 3 illustrates that public institutions have consistently paid female employees approximately 1% to 3% more than private institutions have, with the gap growing over time. In addition, female librarians' salaries at both public and private institutions have gradually increased, improving roughly 6% from 1980 to 2014. Though female librarians at public institutions continue to experience salary increases, it appears that starting around 2010, female librarians at private institutions started to experience a gradual decrease in salary, contributing to the growing gap between librarian salaries in public and private institutions. Fig. 4 shows that the gap may be smaller than Fig. 3 suggests. Once we controlled for the variables in the data, we discovered that public institutions pay female librarians 0.5% to 2.0% more than do private institutions. Fig. 4 also demonstrates a growing gap between salaries in public and private institutions. However, the adjusted data show that females at private institutions are not undergoing a slight salary decrease; rather, their salaries appear to be plateauing. In contrast, female librarians at public institutions continue to see increases in their salaries, thus contributing to the growing gap between public and private institutions.
Implications It is important that managers and human resources staff have clear procedures for determining salaries. Especially in private libraries, which may lack transparent pay policies, clear salary procedures will protect new hires and improve employees' understanding of pay structures in the institution. Good human resource practices might include examining the new hire's résumé and giving appropriate credit for degrees obtained, relevant library experience, other library experience that might be relevant to the position, certifications attained, leadership and management experience, and other experience; such criteria can be used to objectively determine the employee's salary. After looking at all of the objective criteria, managers can create a salary evaluation system in order to give employees credit for the experiences that help them to become better librarians. A good pay system should be defendable, with clear criteria to explain how starting salaries and raises are determined for every employee. Using all of the objective criteria, along with past work performance reviews, HR managers should perform an audit of all employees in order to identify errors and correct wage discrepancies between genders 5
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if they cannot be explained. This process would enable human resource managers to identify when and where the gaps are occurring. Pay gaps could be a result of previous discrimination against older librarians before programs, such as affirmative action, were established. These practices can lead to fair and equal pay policies for all employees, regardless of race or gender.
wage gap at private libraries. Further research could involve investigating the pay policies at each institution within the ARL libraries to determine the reasons for the stark difference between the gender wage gaps at public institutions versus private institutions.
Limitations and further research
A special thanks to Jessica Mansfield for content and editing assistance and to Mathew Madsen for assistance in statistical analysis.
Acknowledgements
We understand that a gray line separating public and private funding exists in some universities, while other universities procure funding from multiple sources. For our data, we used the private and public classifications, self-reported through ARL. Additionally, our sample only included ARL academic libraries, not non-ARL academic libraries. Thus, our study was limited to the 124 research libraries (primarily larger university libraries) that are included in the ARL. Focusing on a small portion of the libraries associated with accredited universities may have limited the results of our research. In addition, further research can explore how variables such as years worked, children, or marital status affect pay regardless of institution type. Since the vast majority of positions reported on the ARL Salary Survey are that of librarian or a higher-level library professional, the data reported in this paper includes salaries for those higher-level positions, and not for lower-earning paraprofessional positions. As noted in the literature review, the more education a female or minority employee has, the more likely he or she is to experience a higher pay gap (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015a). Since our data was limited to faculty librarians, further research could be conducted to study the salaries of paraprofessionals, who generally have lower educational attainment, to further examine the gap in private and public ARL libraries. Because of initiatives to fight racial inequality in ARL institutions, the data on minorities may be unique to ARL libraries; other libraries may not have been exposed to the programs focusing on racial equality. If we repeated the study with public libraries only, we could compare the gap between public ARL libraries and other public libraries. Additionally, further research could examine the effects of rules against discussing pay policies in private university libraries. Other studies could analyze the various policies on discussing wages in the workplace. On another note, as mentioned in the literature review, salary negotiation can have a major effect on salary differences based on gender. A study focusing on how or whether female employees in research libraries use negotiation strategies could explain whether the wage gap can be ameliorated through improving women's negotiation skills.
References Adamy, J., Vo, L. T., Ma, J., Van Dam, A., & Thompson, S. A. (2016, May 17). What's your pay gap? The Wall Street Journal.. Retrieved from http://graphics.wsj.com. Brainard, J. (2011). Faculty pay remains flat at public colleges, edges up at private colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 57(27), A16. Byrne, R. (2008). Gap persists between faculty salaries at public and private institutions. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(32), A19–A20. Dewey, B. I. (2009). The imperative for diversity: ARL's progress and role. Portal: Libraries and the Academy, 9(3), 355–361. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pla.0.0056. Dorning, J. (2016). Library workers: Facts and figures. Retrieved from Department for Professional Employees website http://dpeaflcio.org/programs-publications/issuefact-sheets/library-workers-facts-figures/. Eisenberg, D. T. (2011). Money, sex, and sunshine: A market-based approach to pay discrimination. Arizona State Law Journal, 43(3), 954–1017. Eriksson, K. H., & Sandberg, A. (2012). Gender differences in initiation of negotiation: Does the gender of the negotiation counterpart matter? Negotiation Journal, 28(4), 407–428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1571-9979.2012.00349.x. Forbes (2016). Master's degrees with the worst job prospects in the United States in 2016, by mid-career median pay (in U.S. dollars). Retrieved from Statista website: https:// www.statista.com/statistics/226674/worst-masters-degrees-for-jobs-in-the-unitedstates/. Institute for Women's Policy Research (2014, January). Pay secrecy and wage discrimination [quick figures]. Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://iwpr.org/wpcontent/uploads/wpallimport/files/iwpr-export/publications/Q016%20(1).pdf. Kim, M. (2013). Policies to end the gender wage gap in the United States. Review of Radical Political Economics, 45(3), 278–283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/ 0486613413487159. Moran, B. B., Leonard, E., & Zellers, J. (2009). Women administrators in academic libraries: Three decades of change. Library Trends, 58(2), 215–228. http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1353/lib.0.0088. Morgan, J. C., Farrar, B., & Owens, I. (2009). Documenting diversity among working LIS graduates. Library Trends, 58(2), 192–214. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lib.0.0076. Rippner, J. A., & Toutkoushian, R. K. (2015). The “big bang” in public and private faculty salaries. Journal of Education Finance, 41(2), 103–123. Retrieved from https://muse. jhu.edu/. Sweeper, D., & Smith, S. A. (2010). Assessing the impact of gender and race on earnings in the library science labor market. College and Research Libraries, 71(2), 171–183. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/0710171. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2014). Gender wage gap by industry in the United States in 2014, by median weekly earnings (in U.S. dollars). Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista.com/statistics/244202/us-gender-wage-gap-by-industry/. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015a). Median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers in the United States in 2015, by educational attainment and gender (in current U.S. dollars). Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista.com/ statistics/185332/median-weekly-earnings-of-full-time-wage-and-salary-workers-byeducational-attainment/. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015b). Table 3. Median usual weekly earnings by age, race, Hispanic or Latino ethnicity, and sex. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/ webapps/legacy/cpswktab3.htm. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2015c). Median weekly earnings by educational attainment in 2014. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/median-weeklyearnings-by-education-gender-race-and-ethnicity-in-2014.htm. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016). Female to male earnings ratio of workers in the U.S. in 2016, by age group. Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista. com/statistics/244383/female-to-male-earnings-ratio-of-workers-in-the-us-by-age/. U.S. Census Bureau (2015a). Female to male earnings ratio of workers in the U.S. from 1990 to 2015. Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista.com/statistics/ 203459/female-to-male-earnings-ratio-of-workers-in-the-us/. U.S. Census Bureau (2015b). Female to male earnings ratio of workers in the U.S. in 2015, by state. Retrieved from Statista website: https://www.statista.com/statistics/ 244361/female-to-male-earnings-ratio-of-workers-in-the-us-by-state/. U.S. Census Bureau (2015c). Median annual family income in the United States in 2015, by ethnic group (in U.S. dollars). Retrieved from Statista website: https://www. statista.com/statistics/236771/median-family-income-in-the-us-by-ethnic-group/. Zoghi, C. (2003). Why have public university professors done so badly? Economics of Education Review, 22(1), 45–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7757(01)00058-9.
Conclusion Although discrimination may cause a portion of the gender wage gap, it is necessary to look at other variables that might explain the differences in wages. Controlling for variables is essential to better understand the gender wage gap and will shed further light on which portions of the gender and minority wage gaps can be explained and what factors remain enigmatic. The raw and adjusted data gender gaps in private and public libraries are much smaller than the 77 cents that females in other professions earn for every $1 their male counterparts earn. The practically nonexistent pay gaps in both private and public institutions for minorities versus non-minorities, coupled with relatively low pay gaps for women versus men, reflect positive changes as a result of a push for change within ARL libraries. Although public ARL libraries pay women approximately 1% less than men, the gap between genders has consistently been narrowing over the last 20 years. However, the main concern revolves around the consistent 3.5% gender
6
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The Journal of Academic Librarianship journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jacalib
The Effect of Gender and Minority Status on Salary in Private and Public ARL Libraries Quinn Galbraitha,⁎, Erin Merrillb, Olivia Outzenc a b c
Department of Social Sciences and Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA Department of Instruction, Media and Digital Services, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA Research Assistant in Department of Social Sciences and Education, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Pay disparity Wage gap Gender Minority Academic libraries Research libraries Public vs private Research
The purpose of this study was to identify pay disparities within gender and race using private and public Association of Research Libraries (ARL) libraries as a lens. In this study, 44 ARL libraries participated, leading to 1099 usable responses to our survey. The findings indicate that race and gender pay disparities are larger at private libraries than at public libraries. However, disparity levels at both public and private ARL libraries are smaller than the national averages for all professions and continue to shrink.
Academic libraries vary in their institutional type: some are part of private institutions, while others are part of public institutions. Even though the aims, goals, and daily workflow of these two library types tend to overlap, there are social perceptions that one institutional type is preferable to the other. Factors such as university size, funding, community involvement, and sports culture are often considered by library faculty seeking employment. Due to the differences between the institutions, focused research on these differences may add valuable insight for library administrative staff as well as librarians seeking careers at the university and college levels. While it is generally believed that private universities pay their faculty higher salaries, we hypothesize this may not always be the case when considering other employee benefits. In terms of librarians' wages, we expect greater wage gaps between genders and between races to be found at private institutions because of the private nature of the salaries. Conversely, because of public institutions' transparent salaries, we expect to find greater equality in pay. As a visiting program officer for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the primary researcher was granted access to 35 years of the annual ARL Salary Survey data. Although ARL publishes the data annually in aggregate form, the raw data has not been analyzed in recent years to calculate an adjusted wage gap. The terms raw wage gap and adjusted wage gap are used frequently throughout this paper to describe wage differences between genders and among races in public and private institutions. The term institution is used to describe
⁎
universities, colleges, and research libraries. In order to contextualize the differences in salary, the gaps are reported as what one group earns as a percent of another. A gap of 100% means that there is no pay difference between two groups. The lower the percentage, the larger the wage gap. The raw wage gap, in this context, is a comparison of mean salaries. For example, if the mean male salary was $100,000 and the mean female salary was $95,000, then the raw gender wage gap would be 95%. While this number is informative, it does not establish the existence of a disparity in pay. Differences in human capital could explain why a group appears to be paid less. Therefore, an adjusted wage gap should be calculated to control for such differences. The adjusted wage gap is a calculation of what a person in one group makes compared to a person with the same job characteristics (e.g., positions, years of experience, institution) in the comparison group. This report focuses primarily on the salary differences between librarians at public institutions and librarians at private institutions. Specifically, this report examines ARL's 2014 salary survey data but also presents data from 1980 to 2014 to show salary trends by race and gender. To further contextualize the current state of the salary gap between public and private institutions, we begin by providing a brief overview of pay disparities between genders and between races in the United States, pay disparities in libraries, and pay disparities between public and private institutions.
Corresponding author at: Harold B. Lee Library, 1223 HBLL Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA. E-mail address: [email protected] (Q. Galbraith).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.10.005 Received 19 July 2017; Received in revised form 11 October 2017; Accepted 23 October 2017 0099-1333/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Galbraith, Q., The Journal of Academic Librarianship (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2017.10.005
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found that the pay disparity between white workers and black and Hispanic workers increases as the workers age: Asian workers tend to make more money than their white counterparts do, but when white workers reach the age of 55, they begin to make more money than Asian workers do (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015c). The calculator does not include detailed occupational data in relation to race and income.
Pay disparities in the United States Gender As of 2015, female workers in the United States were making 79.6% of what male workers were making (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015a). In other words, the gender pay gap is approximately 20%. While the figure 79.6% represents the overall national average of women's earnings compared to men's earnings, a, the gap varies based on the level of educational attainment. For example, in 2015, females with advanced degrees made 73.5% of what their male counterparts made, whereas females with less than a high school diploma made 80.3% of what their male counterparts made (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015a,b). Additionally, the older the woman, the larger pay gap she will experience. This trend could be the result of many factors, such as older women having higher levels of educational attainment or having been in the workforce for a longer time, meaning there was more time for the gap to grow. Females ages 16 to 24 experience the smallest pay gaps, making 91.3% of what their male counterparts make; females ages 25 to 34 experience a larger gap, and so on, with the oldest age group—females age 65 and older—making a mere 73.8% of what their male counterparts (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016). When broken down by industry, females in the education and health services industry, which include librarians, make 77.5% of what their male counterparts make; across all industries, females make roughly 80% of what males make (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2014). This data indicates that female librarians are likely experiencing greater gender wage gaps than women in other industries who earn 80% of male earnings throughout the United States. However, other statistics may tell a different story. For example, according to an interactive map showing pay statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, female librarians make $49,829 on average, while male librarians make $53,751 on average, indicating that females make 92.7% of what their male counterparts make in the librarian profession (Adamy, Vo, Ma, Van Dam, & Thompson, 2016). We believe that statistics differ on the gender wage gap among librarians because of differing controls in data analyzation. For example, while some researchers control for gender and years worked, others control for gender only. Thus, the variables they control for, effect the overall outcome leading to small variations in statistics. When examining the gender pay gap by state, levels vary greatly. At the top is the District of Columbia, where Females make 86.3% of what their male counterparts make—a percentage that is 6.7% higher than the national average. At the bottom is Wyoming, where females make only 53.16% of what their male counterparts make—a percentage that is 26.4% lower than the national average and that indicates female earnings are a little more than half of males' earnings (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015b).
Pay disparity in libraries Gender There seems to be a consensus in the research that there is a pay gap in libraries; however, the experts disagree on the size of the gap. A potential reason for the varying estimates is that some researchers may be using raw data, while others are using adjusted data. Statistical data show that as of 2016, library science is considered one of the lowest paid professions requiring a master's degree, with librarians making roughly $57,700 midcareer. Conversely, the top 11 professions requiring a master's degrees offer salaries that are at least double a librarian's salary; the lowest earning of the top 11 professions, an operations manager, makes an average of $121,000, and the highest earning of the top 11 professions, an entrepreneur, makes an average of $139,000 (Forbes, 2016). The lower salary of librarians may be attributed, in part, to the female-dominated nature of libraries and society's tendency to pay females less. Indeed, even predominantly female professions are not immune to pay inequity. Although women represented 83% of the library workforce in 2014, women working as full-time librarians made 7% less than their male counterparts made (Dorning, 2016). Yet, since 1972, the opportunities for females to enter leadership positions have increased, resulting in a declining pay gap between the genders (Sweeper & Smith, 2010). For example, women are playing a more predominant role in academic libraries, especially as they occupy a higher percentage of seats on the ARL board of directors (Sweeper & Smith, 2010). Likewise, female librarians are outpacing females in management positions in other fields, indicating a progressive change for women in the field of library science (Moran, Leonard, & Zellers, 2009). Researchers have noted changing trends over the past several years, with the majority of library directors being female and the average salary of a female director surpassing that of a male’ director's salary in top research libraries. Racial minorities The literature is clear that there is a large difference between the number of racial minorities and whites in library and information science (LIS) programs; the relationship between minority status and salary of LIS graduates is less clear. For example, researchers found that while there is a $10,000 gap between the salaries of males and females, data indicates that blacks and whites make close to the same amount, and Asians earn more than whites do (Morgan, Farrar, & Owens, 2009). The results of Morgan et al.'s (2009) study, however, are inconclusive pertaining to the racial wage gap in academic libraries because LIS graduates may enter professions other than librarianship and pay varies greatly from profession to profession. Dewey (2009) asserted that issues stemming from racial inequality have substantially improved as a result of initiatives and programs sponsored by ARL.
Racial minorities In general, minorities in the United States have lower household incomes than do non-Hispanic whites. An average black or Hispanic household earns roughly $30,000 less a year than the average white household does. In contrast, an average Asian household is likely to make $10,000 more than the average white household—and roughly $40,000 more than an average black or Hispanic household—in a calendar year (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015c). Much like women, black and Hispanic workers experience greater pay gaps as their educational attainment increases; there is a noticeable pay disparity between white and minority workers who have received a bachelor's degree or higher (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015b). Asian workers, on the other hand, are likely to make more money than their white counterparts after receiving a bachelor's degree or higher (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015b). A data calculator from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics can be used to identify pay disparities by age. In doing so, we
Public versus private institution pay gaps Little research shows that there are pay disparities in public academic institutions and in private academic institutions; however, it is well-known that pay differs between public and private institutions, with employees in private institutions making substantially more (Brainard, 2011; Byrne, 2008). This trend has existed for over 40 years and has become more pronounced in the early 2000s (Rippner & Toutkoushian, 2015). 2
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Methodology
Many attribute this pay gap to public universities' tendency to have better insurance and retirement benefits. However, a closer look at wage dissemination via research conducted by Zoghi (2003) shows that this assumption is not accurate; Zoghi stated the following:
Survey creation and sample selection In order to better understand and explain the gender wage gap among academic librarians, we employed two sets of data. The first data set came from ARL's 2014 Salary Survey, which includes limited demographic information and salaries of all ARL library employees. The second set of data was from a survey we conducted to explore factors that potentially affect the gender wage gap and that were not accounted for in the ARL data. The survey was created after a thorough review of the literature. The survey consists of approximately 55 questions, which were reviewed and approved by our university's Institutional Review Board. This original survey was then customized to reflect the unique organizational circumstances and language at each of the participating libraries. Libraries were selected through emailing the directors of 110 ARL libraries across the United States and Canada to invite them to participate in a survey that would “measure variables that relevant literature indicates may explain gender and minority salary difference.” As an incentive, we offered to provide each participating school with a custom report that compared the school's survey results to the collective results. Of the 110 ARL libraries invited, 44 agreed to participate in the study. Once a director agreed to participate, the director appointed a contact at the library. Working with the contact, we identified the appropriate terminology to use with each individual institution in effort to distinguish employee rank within the institution. For example, some institutions use the term “tenure” to designate a higher ranked employee while others use a ranking system such as “Librarian 1, Librarian 2, Librarian 3.” Thus, the contact responses were used to customize each survey to its corresponding institution. We then emailed a letter of invitation and a link to the customized survey to each director or contact, asking them to forward the letter and survey link to each of the institution's professional librarians. To protect the integrity of the data, we confirmed that the participants were professional librarians by asking each participant to affirm that he or she met criteria specific to the library, such as being a tenure-track employee or a faculty member. To encourage survey completion, librarians were given the opportunity to enter a drawing for an iPad Air 2. In order to keep responses anonymous, participants could enter the drawing through clicking on a link at the end of the survey; the link took respondents to a separate survey, where they entered to win the iPad.
Using several potential amenities, such as retirement and insurance benefits, student–faculty ratios, library size and school calendar, I test whether faculty salaries are affected by these amenities. In most cases, the effects are either insignificant or altogether wrong-signed. This suggests that rather than using amenities in place of wages, both wages and amenities are offered as recruiting tools. Changes in the level of amenities over time do not explain the relative wage trends observed. (p. 56). Such gaps prove problematic for public institutions seeking to retain and hire faculty, who often chose to work for private institutions with higher pay.
How pay secrecy affects pay for female employees Because pay transparency is present at public institutions but not at private institutions, it is important to note the research surrounding it. In a study conducted in 2014 by the Institute for Women's Policy Research, a nonprofit research organization associated with George Washington University, the researchers found that nearly half of all employees in the United States face some sort of restriction about disclosing their salaries to coworkers. In the same study, 62% of female respondents and 60% of male respondents who work in the private sector reported that they were discouraged or prohibited from disclosing their salaries. However, only 18% of women and 11% of men in the public sector reported constraints about revealing their pay. The data show that pay secrecy is a much more common practice in the private sector than in the public sector. Pay transparency or fewer restrictions regarding the discussion of pay does not necessarily require employers to release all current salaries, but it does give employees the right to discuss their salaries without the fear of repercussion. The Institute for Women's Policy Research (2014) stated, “While there may be no direct link between pay secrecy and pay inequality, pay secrecy appears to contribute to the gender gap in earnings”, (p. 1). Although the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 protects workers' right to discuss their wages, the majority of employers continue to “formally or informally forbid” the exchange of information concerning income (Kim, 2013, p. 281). Another leading argument designed to explain the pay gap between men and women is that women lack the ability and desire to negotiate a fair salary. Eriksson, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish Institute for Social Research at Stockholm University, conducted an experiment on how gender affects the propensity to initiate a negotiation of compensation. In the study, “28 percent of the female participants initiated a negotiation, compared to 42 percent of the male participants” (Eriksson & Sandberg, 2012, p. 414). Some may argue that women are victims of discrimination because negotiating is stereotypically considered a masculine behavior; however, a woman's salary may be influenced by her decision or ability to negotiate. Thus, some may suggest that learning to negotiate more effectively for higher compensation can help women close their individual wage gaps. Scholars argue that information asymmetry between employers and employees prevents employees from efficiently negotiating their salaries. Pay secrecy has an especially negative impact on women's abilities to negotiate salary because they face repercussions from challenging social gender norms and being perceived as too aggressive (Eisenberg, 2011). The literature has yet to cover the effects of pay secrecy policies in ARL libraries.
Model specifications We obtained usable survey data from 1099 participants at 44 institutions. In comparison, the ARL data includes 9337 responses from 119 institutions. Responses to our survey were automatically filtered out if the participant did not indicate his or her sex or salary. Additionally, the data from the few respondents who were deans and directors were removed, primarily for consistency with the ARL Salary Survey data, which does not include information on these individuals. To increase the integrity of our method, we assessed salary data from our survey and the ARL survey only if the data was from full-time employees. Of our sample, 71.06% were female and 28.95% were male; in the ARL's sample, 62.87% were female and 37.12% were male. The original model that was used to measure salary differences between racial minorities and white was defined as ln(salary) = α + X · β + ε. In this model, ln(salary) represents the natural logarithm of the respondents' yearly salaries, α represents the intercept of the equation, β is a vector of coefficients that tie each of the explanatory variables to salary, and ε is a vector of random error terms. X is a matrix of explanatory variables that could affect respondents' salaries. In the matrix, this model included years of experience, years of experience squared, institution worked at, job position, type of librarian (law or 3
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medical), sex, and minority status. Dummy variables were used for each institution and job position. The standard errors were clustered at the institutional level and used to compute confidence intervals and determine significance of variables. Clustering was used to allow for arbitrary correlation among respondents at the same institution, but assume independence between institutions. The coefficient for the minority variable was then converted to a percentage by the formula 100 − 100 ∗ exp(βminority). This model was used to estimate the wage gap in each of the 35 years represented in the data. The model used to analyze ARL's Salary Survey data, controlled for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, and sex. In addition to the variables previously mentioned, a second model using the survey data accounted for marital status, children, and highest degree earned. These variables, which were only some of the many variables available in the survey, were chosen after a review of the literature and consultation with a labor economist. The analyses of both the ARL data and our survey data included regression techniques to estimate the effect of gender on salary. For both datasets, standard errors were clustered at the institution level to allow for arbitrary error correlation in each school. This step was completed because the hypothesized factors (e.g., hiring culture) causing a gender wage gap should remain relatively consistent for all observations at a given institution. Without cluster correction, the standard error associated with the estimated coefficients would be too small, giving a false sense of precision.
Fig. 1. Difference between minority librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
Results Public versus private salary gaps: minorities According to the 2014 raw ARL data, minority librarians at public institutions make 96.89% of what their majority counterparts make, while minority librarians at private institutions make 94.69% of what their majority counterparts make. These findings indicate that minority librarians at private institutions experience a pay gap that is 2.20% greater than the pay gap at public institutions. However, when institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, job position, type of librarian (law or medical), sex, and minority status in the X matrix were controlled for, the gap between minority and majority decreased, as did the gap between public and private institutions. The 2014 adjusted ARL data show that minority librarians at private institutions make 100.22% of what their majority counterparts make, while minority librarians at public institutions make 99.55% of what their majority counterparts make. When adjusted, the confidence intervals overlap, indicating that the differences between public and private institutions are insignificant for minority salaries. Minority salaries (as a percentage of their majority counterparts' salaries) at public versus private institutions were also explored as a trend from 1980 to 2014. Fig. 1 displays the raw wage gap for minorities at public and private institutions. Fig. 2 displays the adjusted wage gap from 1980 to 2014. The raw data displayed in Fig. 1 suggests that there was a substantial difference in the way public and private institutions paid minority librarians before the early 2000s. However, when examining the adjusted data in Fig. 2, the wage gap between public and private institutions shows to have been insignificant over a period of 34 years.
Fig. 2. Adjusted difference between minority librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
males decreases; the gap between public and private institutions decreases as well. Once adjusted, the 2014 ARL data shows that female librarians at public institutions make 98.71% of what their male counterparts make, while female librarians at private institutions make 96.44% of what their male counterparts make, equating to a 2.27% difference between public and private institutions after adjusting the data. Thus, the adjusted data indicates that the gap is slightly more than 2% lower than the gap suggested in the raw data. While 2% may seem minimal at first glance, when considering that the 2014–2015 ARL average salary was $77,000, a 2% difference is roughly $1540 a year for female employees. While the raw data may suggest that female librarians at public institutions are shorted 2.35%, or $1810, a year, the adjusted data suggests that females are actually shorted 1.29%, or $993, a year. Therefore, the gap is actually smaller and more manageable for human resource managers to overcome. Likewise, while the raw data for private institutions suggests that the female librarians are shorted 6.87% ($5290) per year, the adjusted data shows that female librarians at private institutions are actually shorted 3.56% ($2740). Libraries should be capable of closing this gap by reviewing salary procedures. Female librarians' salaries (as a percentage of their male salaries) at public versus private institutions were also explored as a trend from 1980 to 2014. Fig. 3 displays the raw gender wage gap at public and
Public versus private salary gaps: gender According to the 2014 raw ARL data, female librarians at public institutions make 97.65% of what their male counterparts make, while female librarians at private institutions make 93.13% of what their male counterparts make, equating to a 4.52% difference between public and private institutions. However, when the data is controlled for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, sex, and type of library (law or medical), the gap between females and 4
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Discussion While there are many variables that contributed to this research, such as marital status, years worked, or number of children, the pay disparities within gender and race at public and private libraries is the focus of this paper. The implications of the analysis results are primarily positive for research libraries overall. For example, minority status does not seem to affect salary levels in either public or private research libraries. When looking at the raw data, there is approximately a 3.5% wage gap between minority librarians and white librarians. After controlling for institution, years of experience, years of experience squared, position, sex, and type of library, we found no significant differences in minority wages between private and public universities. The narrowing gap indicates positive growth in minority salaries, regardless of the type of institution. In recent years, minority librarian salaries in private ARL libraries exceeded the salaries of white librarians. While private institutions slightly favor minorities more than public institutions do, the difference in pay for minorities at public and private ARL institutions is extremely minimal. In contrast, we found a substantial difference between male and female librarian salaries at both public and private universities. In public ARL libraries, the average female librarian is paid 1.3% less than male librarians, but in private ARL libraries, the gap nearly triples to 3.5%. The average salary of librarians in private ARL libraries was $78,794.76 in 2014, which equates to women making, on average, $2757.82 less per year than their male counterparts make. If the average salary increase is 2% a year, females are approximately 18 months behind their male counterparts in their pay. Although the percentages appear to be small, the inequality is startling when presented in terms of actual salaries. The data shows a plateau in the wage gap in private libraries starting in about 1997. Thus, this plateau shows little progress being made in terms of closing the wage gap; the gap has been fairly stagnant over the past two decades—a trend that could be attributed to repercussions of pay-secrecy policies in private ARL libraries. As mentioned in the literature review, female employees are less inclined to negotiate their salaries. The stark difference between the trends in the wage data for female librarians at public and private institutions suggests that females in the library industry would be more financially secure in accepting a job at a public institution. Based on the adjusted data, there is less discrimination at public ARL institutions than is suggested by the raw data. Even if a female librarian initially has a higher starting salary at a private institution, it may be better to accept a job at a public institution to continue receiving salary increases in the position.
Fig. 3. Difference between female librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
Fig. 4. Adjusted difference between female librarians' salaries in public and private institutions.
private institutions. Fig. 4 displays the adjusted gender wage gap during the same timeframe. Fig. 3 illustrates that public institutions have consistently paid female employees approximately 1% to 3% more than private institutions have, with the gap growing over time. In addition, female librarians' salaries at both public and private institutions have gradually increased, improving roughly 6% from 1980 to 2014. Though female librarians at public institutions continue to experience salary increases, it appears that starting around 2010, female librarians at private institutions started to experience a gradual decrease in salary, contributing to the growing gap between librarian salaries in public and private institutions. Fig. 4 shows that the gap may be smaller than Fig. 3 suggests. Once we controlled for the variables in the data, we discovered that public institutions pay female librarians 0.5% to 2.0% more than do private institutions. Fig. 4 also demonstrates a growing gap between salaries in public and private institutions. However, the adjusted data show that females at private institutions are not undergoing a slight salary decrease; rather, their salaries appear to be plateauing. In contrast, female librarians at public institutions continue to see increases in their salaries, thus contributing to the growing gap between public and private institutions.
Implications It is important that managers and human resources staff have clear procedures for determining salaries. Especially in private libraries, which may lack transparent pay policies, clear salary procedures will protect new hires and improve employees' understanding of pay structures in the institution. Good human resource practices might include examining the new hire's résumé and giving appropriate credit for degrees obtained, relevant library experience, other library experience that might be relevant to the position, certifications attained, leadership and management experience, and other experience; such criteria can be used to objectively determine the employee's salary. After looking at all of the objective criteria, managers can create a salary evaluation system in order to give employees credit for the experiences that help them to become better librarians. A good pay system should be defendable, with clear criteria to explain how starting salaries and raises are determined for every employee. Using all of the objective criteria, along with past work performance reviews, HR managers should perform an audit of all employees in order to identify errors and correct wage discrepancies between genders 5
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if they cannot be explained. This process would enable human resource managers to identify when and where the gaps are occurring. Pay gaps could be a result of previous discrimination against older librarians before programs, such as affirmative action, were established. These practices can lead to fair and equal pay policies for all employees, regardless of race or gender.
wage gap at private libraries. Further research could involve investigating the pay policies at each institution within the ARL libraries to determine the reasons for the stark difference between the gender wage gaps at public institutions versus private institutions.
Limitations and further research
A special thanks to Jessica Mansfield for content and editing assistance and to Mathew Madsen for assistance in statistical analysis.
Acknowledgements
We understand that a gray line separating public and private funding exists in some universities, while other universities procure funding from multiple sources. For our data, we used the private and public classifications, self-reported through ARL. Additionally, our sample only included ARL academic libraries, not non-ARL academic libraries. Thus, our study was limited to the 124 research libraries (primarily larger university libraries) that are included in the ARL. Focusing on a small portion of the libraries associated with accredited universities may have limited the results of our research. In addition, further research can explore how variables such as years worked, children, or marital status affect pay regardless of institution type. Since the vast majority of positions reported on the ARL Salary Survey are that of librarian or a higher-level library professional, the data reported in this paper includes salaries for those higher-level positions, and not for lower-earning paraprofessional positions. As noted in the literature review, the more education a female or minority employee has, the more likely he or she is to experience a higher pay gap (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015a). Since our data was limited to faculty librarians, further research could be conducted to study the salaries of paraprofessionals, who generally have lower educational attainment, to further examine the gap in private and public ARL libraries. Because of initiatives to fight racial inequality in ARL institutions, the data on minorities may be unique to ARL libraries; other libraries may not have been exposed to the programs focusing on racial equality. If we repeated the study with public libraries only, we could compare the gap between public ARL libraries and other public libraries. Additionally, further research could examine the effects of rules against discussing pay policies in private university libraries. Other studies could analyze the various policies on discussing wages in the workplace. On another note, as mentioned in the literature review, salary negotiation can have a major effect on salary differences based on gender. A study focusing on how or whether female employees in research libraries use negotiation strategies could explain whether the wage gap can be ameliorated through improving women's negotiation skills.
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Conclusion Although discrimination may cause a portion of the gender wage gap, it is necessary to look at other variables that might explain the differences in wages. Controlling for variables is essential to better understand the gender wage gap and will shed further light on which portions of the gender and minority wage gaps can be explained and what factors remain enigmatic. The raw and adjusted data gender gaps in private and public libraries are much smaller than the 77 cents that females in other professions earn for every $1 their male counterparts earn. The practically nonexistent pay gaps in both private and public institutions for minorities versus non-minorities, coupled with relatively low pay gaps for women versus men, reflect positive changes as a result of a push for change within ARL libraries. Although public ARL libraries pay women approximately 1% less than men, the gap between genders has consistently been narrowing over the last 20 years. However, the main concern revolves around the consistent 3.5% gender
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