‘Sunshine’ highlights wage gap
Carleton, U of O lists show men even further ahead since 2013
The Sunshine List is brighter for men than women at Ottawa’s two major universities, according to data analyzed by the Citizen, revealing significant pay gaps.
At a time when universities in Ottawa, and across the country, are beginning to look closely at wage gaps between men and women, the annual Sunshine List, which publishes salaries of Ontario public sector employees earning more than $100,000, is revealing.
Men who earned more than $100,000 a year at the University of Ottawa in 2017 made an average of $11,381.38 more than women who were also on the Sunshine List. At Carleton University, men who earned more than $100,000 a year made an average of $10,633.13 more than their female counterparts in 2017.
The wage gaps among the highest paid at each university have grown steadily since 2013, according to the analysis. At the University of Ottawa in 2013, men earning more than $100,000 made $9,338.50 more a year, on average, than their female counterparts. That gap grew by nearly $2,000 by 2017.
At Carleton University, in comparison, men on the Sunshine List earned an average of $8,205.91 more than their female counterparts in 2013. That gap grew by more than $2,400 as of 2017.
The gap between the number of men and women earning more than $100,000, meanwhile, closed slightly at both universities from 2013-17, although the change was minimal at Carleton, where in 2013, 65 per cent of employees on the Sunshine List were male and 35 per cent were female. By 2017, those numbers were 63.6 per cent male and 36.4 per cent female.
At the University of Ottawa in 2013, 62.4 per cent of employees on the Sunshine List were men and 37.6 per cent were women. By 2017, 58.2 per cent of employees earning more than $100,000 were men, compared with 41.8 per cent that were women.
The annual Sunshine List does not include gender. In order to analyze the pay gap between genders at Ottawa’s two major universities, the Citizen independently audited the Sunshine List over a period of five years.
Thousands of names were included in the Citizen’s data and were assigned gender based on a combination of assessing online profiles and historical precedent — for example, all people named Richard were labelled as men. The analysis was not able to take into account people who do not identify as either gender.
The numbers support other research done at the University of Ottawa, which found female faculty members earn less money and get promoted at a slower rate than their male counterparts. The university and professor’s union are working to further study wage gaps and how to remedy them.
The university has also appointed a special adviser on diversity and inclusion. Steffany Bennett, a professor in the faculty of medicine, was appointed to the role of special adviser in late 2016.
She said the university, whose new president Jacques Fremont is the former head of Quebec’s human right’s commission, has made it a priority to improve equity, diversity and inclusion.
Her role includes studying data to better understand disparities and determine how the university can identify and address the underlying reasons.
Among issues being studied is why it takes female professors at the university longer to get promoted than their male colleagues.
Bennett said the university is determined to see change where disparities exist.
Carleton University is also investigating pay disparities between male and female professors, bringing in outside experts to review the issue and report back next year, according to Root Gorelick, who heads the Carleton University Academic Staff Association.
Gorelick said the wage gap identified based on the Sunshine List supports union concerns about wage disparities. More nuanced analysis is needed, he added, to better understand exactly where the problem lies, whether it is a current issue or a “historical artifact” and what can be done about it.
The union’s research — which found a gap of from $3,500-$5,000 for female instructors and professors — looked at how other factors affected salaries, including years since obtaining a first degree and which faculty professors are in.
The university, meanwhile, has said its own research found there wasn’t a statistically significant wage gap between male and female professors at Carleton, something it is confident an independent review will confirm.
Other universities across the country have launched their own investigations in recent years into gender pay gaps, with some resulting in payouts to female professors.
Meanwhile, University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who sits on the joint professors’ union-university equity, diversity and inclusion committee, said the numbers based on the Sunshine List — which include administrative staff as well as professors — suggests there is also a pay gap for administrators.
Attaran says the university has dragged its feet when it came to being transparent about equity issues. It continues to drag its feet, he says, when it comes to equity for visible minorities, Aboriginal and disabled faculty, he says.
“It is not only that they are paid too little, but that they employ too few.”