What are Columbus officials doing to close income gaps in the area?
When Joyce Chen first found out she was paid considerably less than her peers — and those lower in rank than her — she was embarrassed.
Now 45, Chen was about six years into her teaching career at Ohio State University in 2012 when publicly available pay data showed her the stark difference in her salary.
She first consulted a mentor, who told her not to do anything but stay focused and keep her head down, with the assurance that “it would work itself out,” she said.
So she waited, hoping it would. After getting tenure in 2017, Chen decided she was done waiting.
It was a contentious issue to bring up, especially since all pay adjustments come out of the same pool at Ohio State, meaning an equity raise would reduce the annual raise amounts for others within the same department, Chen said.
She then worked as an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics but has since switched to Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. She is now on unpaid leave for Ohio State and working as a senior economist at Amazon.
“I felt like it was my fault, like I should’ve done something else different,” Chen said of seeking an equity pay adjustment. “I was embarrassed it had gone on as long as it had with me knowing about it. I felt deficient, like I had not done something.”
She also felt very frustrated, like she was powerless to change the situation.
Still, she went through the appeals process, first raising the issue with the chair of her department, who gave her a 4% pay raise.
That still left her underpaid compared to assistant professors by about 15%, Chen said.
“(It felt like) I’m just never going to be valued here,” she said.
So, after doing a thorough pay equity study on her department, she filed a formal grievance with the college investigation committee, which is made up of faculty members who make recommendations.
The gender pay gap affects women of all races, nationalities, sexual orientations, gender expressions and lifestyles.
Equal Pay Day is March 14 this year, showing how far into the next year women in the United States have to work to earn what men did in the previous calendar year, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.
Though the pay gap is narrowing, it’s happening slowly. The institute estimates that it will take decades for women workers to reach pay equity with men. In 2021, full-time, year-round female employees were estimated to need 38 years, to 2059, and all women were estimated to need 33 years, to 2054, according to the institute. Using public records she requested, Chen compared the productivity, annual reviews and more of her colleagues.
Based on that, she requested to make what assistant professors make, plus 8%.
In 2023, women make 84 cents for every dollar a white, non-hispanic man made, according to Equal Pay Today. That’s a penny more than last year.
We broke down what you need to know this Equal Pay Day, including how women’s pay stacks up to their male counterparts in Columbus and the nation.
The committee agreed and her pay was raised by 20%, which was confirmed by in an emailed statement from university spokesman Ben Johnson, who said Chen’s salary was increased “to align with her peers based on a salary analysis conducted at that time.”
M. Monica Giusti, a distinguished professor in the Food Science and Technology Department at Ohio State, was on the committee that heard Chen’s case.
Chen’s experience is part of a much bigger issue, Giusti said: the gender pay gap overall.
After her experience, Chen did a larger study, titled “The Gender Pay Gap in Academia: Evidence from the Ohio State University,” on salaries of professors across the university and found that the average gender pay gap is 11%. It can be found at aede.osu.edu.
Ohio State acknowledged that pay
“I felt like they wanted everyone to fit one model and that was the only model they could understand or value. It was important to push back on that and say, ‘I am delivering, I’m doing all the things, just not in the way you want me to.’”