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Editor's note: This is second in a three part series about compensation and salaries at UCLA. Part three will run Wednesday.

When salaries are compared in terms of gender at UCLA, differences abound.

Men still outearn and outnumber women in the university’s professorial ranks, and the gap between the salaries of male and female professors has widened since 1990.

But recent UCLA studies found little evidence of unfairness in the salaries of men and women.

Though the numbers of female faculty at UCLA and their wages have grown rapidly in the past 15 years, women are still a minority of the top-paid people at the university, according to UCLA payroll data.

The number of UCLA employees earning annual base salaries of $200,000 or more increased by about 20 per year from 2003 to 2005, but the total number of women on that list only increased by an average of two per year during that time.

The vast majority of the 123 individuals who made $200,000 or more in 2005 are clinical faculty at the medical school. Most of the rest are administrators.

And out of the 123, only 11 are women.

Men also outnumber women as professors by a factor of more than 2-to-1, despite an overall increase in faculty. And, on average, while numbers of female faculty have grown, women’s wages lag behind men’s by more than they did in 1990, according to annual salary surveys from the American Association of University Professors.

In 1990 male professors at UCLA earned an average of $4,033 more than female professors.

By 2005 that gap had grown to an average of $7,400 in favor of men.

Adjusting for inflation, in 2005 the gap between the salaries of the average male professor and the average female professor was $1,400 greater than it was in 1990.

Some of the salary differences can be explained by the academic areas where male professors have been historically more prevalent. There are fewer women, for example, in the more lucrative health sciences than in the humanities. The relatively recent hiring of many female professors also plays into salary differences because many full professors at the top of the salary scale are men who were hired when there were fewer women in the applicant pool.

While these numbers show salary differences based on gender at the university, if taken superficially they can be misleading, said Roshan Bastani, associate dean for research in the department of health sciences.

“There are differences, but you can’t only take differences at their face value,” said Bastani, who was an advisory member of a committee that studied gender equity in the health sciences and released a report in 2005.

Bastani’s conclusion reflects two studies on gender equity at UCLA.

One by the Health Sciences Compensation Committee found salary differences in its May 2005 report but could not pinpoint bias in hiring or salary allocations. The report, which was commissioned by the Academic Senate in 2000, includes data from three separate studies and a review.

The committee concluded that while differences existed between the salaries of male and female professors, salaries were much closer when professors with similar qualifications were compared. Several of the studies compared professors based on discipline, time at the university and productivity.

The report traced some salary differences to the portion of salary that professors who have been recruited negotiate with the chairs of their new departments to bring their salaries to a level competitive with other institutions. But there was not enough evidence to conclude that the salary negotiations were biased against women, the committee’s report stated.

To make sure gender bias does not come into play in salary negotiations, the report advised more oversight.

Adrienne Lavine, chairwoman of the Academic Senate, said the issues brought up by the study are important.

“The health-science study does seem to indicate ... that there is still some discrepancy between the salaries of men and women,” Lavine said.

But the situation for female faculty at UCLA is good, if not perfectly equitable, she said.

“I think that we have some advantages to other institutions because the processes we use to determine faculty salaries are formalized by these faculty steps and we rely heavily on peer review,” she said. “There’s so many people involved in the process of reviewing faculty that I think it tends to wash out some unconscious bias.”

An earlier study on gender equity at UCLA found that differences were small between comparable faculty, but it also unearthed some evidence of unequal treatment.

The 2000 study by UCLA’s Gender Equity Committee found that salary differences between men and women were “small or nonexistent” when the people compared were of the same rank, department and seniority.

But the study, which excluded professors involved in medical or dental fields, also found that women are sometimes promoted less quickly than men.

The increased gap in salary differences can be partially attributed to the way faculty numbers have increased.

There are currently 1,232 men and 478 women serving as nonmedical faculty at UCLA. In 1990, those numbers were 1,184 and 282, respectively.

The number of new female full professors also more than doubled between 1990 and 2005, from 100 to 235. But the number of male full professors increased only slightly, from 792 to 815. This trend increased the salary gap between male and female professors because professor salaries increase with the number of years at the university, so the newest professors make less than their more-seasoned counterparts.

Judy Smith, vice provost for undergraduate education, said she believes UCLA has improved in terms of gender equality during the 28 years she has been at the university. But more is needed, she said.

“UCLA has made slow, steady progress. Could it be better? Yes, very definitely.”

To see part one of this series, click here.

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