Another reason for the difference in salary, if men and women of
equivalent rank are compared, is that women tend to stay at the junior
levels longer than men. In Virginia Valin's book, Why So Slow, (which I
highly recommend) she points out that the number of women associate
professors in academics is actually quite high, but this is not because
more women are being appointed at the assistant level, but because they
are not being promoted to more senior positions. At the same
institution, if the annual percent increase is the same for men and
women, if the junior faculty women on average started before the average
junior faculty male, their starting salary would be lower (reflecting
the year they were hired) and even though both received the same percent
increase, the man's actual salary would increase more rapidly. Small
cumulative disadvantages, as she points out in her book, add up to large
disadvantages.
Kathy Buckley
Dept of Neurobiology
Harvard Medical School
