Stochastic modelling of intersectional pay gaps in universities

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Tessa Barrett-Walker
  • Franca Bülow
  • Lindsey Te Atu O Tu MacDonald
  • Anna Brower
  • Alex James

The gender and ethnicity pay gaps are well publicised for academics. The majority of research relies on observations representing a point in time or uses models to consider a standard academic lifespan. We use a stochastic mathematical model to ask what drives differences in lifetime earnings of university academics and highlight a new question: how best should we quantify a working lifetime? The model observes and accounts for patterns in age when entering and leaving the workforce, and differing salary trajectories during an academic career. It is parameterized with data from a national dataset in Aotearoa New Zealand. We compare the total lifetime earnings of different gender and ethnicity groups with and without accounting for the different lengths of time spent in academia. The lifetime earnings gaps are considerably larger when we account for different hiring and leaving ages. We find that overall, for every ethnicity, women have shorter careers and are more likely to leave academia. All minority ethnic groups - and women - earn considerably less than their male white, European colleagues.

Original languageEnglish
Article number230615
JournalRoyal Society Open Science
Volume10
Issue number10
Number of pages14
ISSN2054-5703
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11.10.2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors.

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