Salary structure effects and the gender pay gap in academia

This paper presents estimates of the gender salary gap and discrimination based on the most recent national faculty survey data. New estimates for 1999 indicate that male faculty members still earn 20.7% more than comparable female colleagues. Depending upon which decomposition technique is employed, the portion of this gap attributable to discrimination is 17% or, 19-23%. Both estimates of the unexplained salary gap are lower than previous estimates. Furthermore, application of the Juhn technique shows that differences in salary structure, especially between research and liberal arts institutions, constitutes an important determinant of the relative gender pay gap between institutional types.