Gender Issues in University: The University As Employer Of Academic And Nonacademic Women And Men

Abstract

This paper examines data from a small university in Atlantic Canada, focusing on the university as employer, in order to highlight one aspect of the impact of gender on universities. The data include official records on all employees, details from contracts and terms of employment, responses to questionnaires sent to all employees, and unstructured interviews conducted with university officials. Employees belong to one of six groups: faculty, librarians, professional and technical workers, secretarial-clerical workers, physical plant employees, and "non-classified". Working conditions and salaries vary across groups and within groups by step, rank or level. Women employees are concentrated in the secretarial-clerical group, one of two with restrictive working conditions. Women are more likely than men to be part-time employees, with few employee benefits. Men dominate the higher ranks of each group; women are concen- trated at the lower ranks. Regression analyses of salaries show that, even with controls for rank, seniority and education, women in each employee group tend to earn considerably less than their male colleagues. Responses to the questionnaire reveal that women report more gender discrimination and sexual harassment than do men. The analysis highlights the importance of developing structures to address issues of gender equity for all university employees.