GENDER-BASED PAY GAPS - METHODOLOGICAL AND POLICY ISSUES IN UNIVERSITY SALARY STUDIES

Methodology is often a point of contention in gender-based salary stud ies. Although this debate seems at first to be merely about technical issues, it also has an important conceptual dimension. We argue that t here are two competing implicit conceptions of discrimination one inst itutional and the other individual, that underlie many such debates. W e first contrast the preferred methodologies advanced by each side, th e policy capturing approach and the flagging approach, and explore the theoretical meaning of their statistical models. We then describe a p ractical application of both methodological approaches in one specific salary inequity study. In conclusion we reflect on the implications o f such practical statistical choices, discuss how such models can be c ombined, and make suggestions for sociologists who act as statistical experts or work with them in gender-based salary inequity studies on t heir own campuses.