Sticky Floors, Double-Binds, and Double Whammies: Adjusting for Research Performance Reveals Universities’ Gender Pay Gap is Not Disappearing

Abstract

We use 12 years of holistic research performance scores for each academic in all New Zealand universities to ask whether gendered gaps in pay, age, research performance score, and performance-adjusted pay are narrowing with time. We find that the gender gaps in age and research performance score narrowed from 2006 to 2018, but the gender gaps in pay and performance-adjusted pay did not. Controlling for research performance score, age, and field, women’s odds of advancement to high ranks converged to around two-thirds of men’s advancement odds. Similarly, the lifetime performance-adjusted gender pay gap has converged to around one-third the price of an average home. Trends suggest that, no matter how much women improve their research scores and “lean-in” for promotions, the performance-adjusted pay gap has plateaued to an equilibrium. Data from an entire national workforce fail to support the most common explanations for academic gender pay gaps—child-bearing and demographic inertia. But results are consistent with a systemic dynamic in which double-binds and double-whammies create a sticky floor that starts women at lower pay and impedes their advancement over time. We conclude with some suggested remedies from the literature of behavioral science. Without concerted efforts to change the structures of hiring and promotion, the gender pay gap in universities will not disappear of its own inertia.