SHOULD FACULTY RANK BE INCLUDED AS A PREDICTOR VARIABLE IN STUDIES OFGENDER EQUITY IN UNIVERSITY-FACULTY SALARIES

Many different approaches, almost all of which use some form of regres sion, have been used to study the issue of gender equity in university faculty salaries. One major point of contention in all of these appro aches is whether faculty rank, which is university conferred, should b e included as a predictor variable. Two illustrations are presented to demonstrate how omitting faculty rank as a predictor variable from ge nder equity studies of university faculty salaries can lead to incorre ct conclusions concerning gender discrimination. The first illustratio n uses hypothetical data constructed so that there is no difference in salary due to gender. However, when faculty rank is not included as a predictor variable in the regression model, there is a significant di fference in salary due to gender. The second illustration uses actual data from a study of gender equity in pay at Bowling Green State Unive rsity. This data set is used to construct a new data set that is total ly free of gender bias. When a regression model omitting faculty rank is fit to this gender bias-free data, again a significant difference i n salary due to gender is present. Therefore, it is recommended that f aculty rank be included as a predictor variable in any model used to s tudy gender equity relating to salary.