Data published by Statistics Canada (reported in the Montreal Gazette) has revealed that male professors in Canadian universities on average earn higher salaries than their female colleagues — with the discrepancy reaching to more than $20,000 at some institutions.
University officials are trying to justify these pay discrepancies by blaming them on other 'variable factors'. For instance, historic conditions such as hiring practices that favour men, the age and rank of professors and the distribution of men and women in different disciplines. Fields such as business, computer science and engineering tend to pay more and are dominated by men, while female-dominated fields, like social sciences and the humanities, pay less.
The University of Toronto seems to think that it's 'doing pretty well' even though it came out top on the list with the average salary of its full-time male teaching-staff member $20,362 higher than a full time female teaching-staff member.
Denial won't solve the problem, it's time to get serious and see this as a wake up call.
