gender, pay and work satisfaction at a uk university

Gender, Pay and Work Satisfactionat a UK University

Maria Smith*gwao_403 621..641

This article examines a modern, former polytechnic granted the status ofuniversity in 1992, to illustrate the state gender pay gap in the UK andsuggests that to talk of the state pay gap is too simplistic as it does not takeinto account variations in the size of the pay gap in different job grades.The article also examines satisfaction levels with pay for two groups ofstaff, administrative and academic and shows how satisfaction withpay, promotion and conditions also varies between the grades. Previousresearch that concluded that women are more satisfied with their pay thanmen is, again, too simplistic as it does not consider the affect of staff grade.The article argues that there is a link between the size of the pay gap, staffgrade, occupational gender segregation and expressing dissatisfaction.

Keywords: gender pay gap, work satisfaction, higher education, job grade,occupational segregation

Introduction

There is a contradictory relationship between women’s pay and job satis-faction. As a rule women earn less than men, although research has

shown that they express equal and often greater satisfaction with their payand work than men (Young, 1999). This contradiction has been summarizedas the ‘paradox of the contented female worker’ (Crosby, 1982). Indeed, it hasbeen noted that women’s jobs are often considerably worse than men’s interms of job security and content, promotion opportunities and sexual harass-ment, and yet women still generally report higher levels of satisfaction thanmen (Clark, 1997). This is true across both private and state sector employ-ment but is particularly pertinent for state employment in the UK sincewomen constitute a considerably higher proportion of public sector workersthan men. For example, in 2004 65 per cent of public sector workers in the UKwere women (National Statistics, 2005).

Address for correspondence: *Centre for Research and Evaluation, Church House, SheffieldHallam University, e-mail: [email protected]

Gender, Work and Organization. Vol. 16 No. 5 September 2009doi:10.1111/j.1468-0432.2008.00403.x

© 2008 The Author(s)Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

This article is an in-depth quantitative analysis of one particular stateemployer. It examines data on pay and the findings from a staff satisfactionsurvey conducted at one university in the UK. It delves deeper into theparadox of pay and satisfaction than previous studies and sheds considerablelight on the nature of the public sector pay gap. The university referred to inthis research is a large and modern, metropolitan post-1992 university and forthe sake of anonymity is referred to as University A in this article.

The article introduces new dimensions into the state pay gap debate in anumber of ways. First of all, although it has been recognized that women arepaid less than men in higher education institutions and that, furthermore, thesize of the gender pay gap varies from institution to institution, previousresearch on the gender pay gap in universities has generally been limited toa study of academic staff. This article adds to the debate by demonstratingthat the pay gap is not uniform across all grades of staff and that it issignificantly larger for some groups. For example the pay gap for adminis-trative staff is nearly four times greater than for teaching staff. In addition, thearticle discusses horizontal and vertical occupational segregation at Univer-sity A and its impact upon the pay gap.

Secondly, while reports and papers on job satisfaction are abundant (forexample, it has been suggested that approximately 10,000 studies of jobsatisfaction have been published), little research has been conducted on thesatisfaction of those working in higher education (Oshagbemi, 2000a). Inparticular, the differences between men and women have attracted littleresearch (Oshagbemi, 2000b). This article therefore adds to the small amountof research on job satisfaction for men and women working at higher educa-tion institutions.

Thirdly, satisfaction studies at universities have tended to concentrate uponacademic staff. Given that levels of pay gap differ significantly betweengrades of staff, it is desirable to examine whether pay satisfaction differsbetween grades. Therefore, this article looks at satisfaction levels for twogroups of staff working at University A: administrative and academic teach-ing staff, notes differences and similarities and offers explanations of why thiscould be occurring.

The gender pay gap at higher educational institutions inthe UK

Despite legislation aimed at securing equal pay for women, the gender paygap has persisted into the 21st century. Koskina describes it as ‘an accustomedand persistent attribute of all types of economies’ (Koskina, 2005, p. 1). Thegap occurs even at higher education institutions in the UK where there is aformal framework of well-defined ranks and scales that should, in theory,ensure pay equality between men and women.

622 GENDER, WORK AND ORGANIZATION

Volume 16 Number 5 September 2009 © 2008 The Author(s)Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Pay at higher education institutions in the UK is negotiated by the JointNegotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff. This comprises the Uni-versities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA), and the trade unionsUniversity and College Union (UCU), Unison, Educational Institute ofScotland (EIS), Britain’s General Union (GMB), Amicus and the Transportand General Workers Union (T&G). However, despite the nationally agreedpay scales that have been negotiated by unions, studies of the UK highereducation sector have shown that there is a significant promotions gapbetween male and female academic staff and also a significant gap betweenmen and women within each scale. Thus, not only are women less likely to bepromoted but they are also less likely to be paid as much as their malecolleagues on the same scale as themselves (Blackaby et al., 2005). The pro-motions gender gap has also been found in other studies, although someauthors have found that there is no pay gap in the same scales (for example,Ward, 2001).

Analysis of Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data on academicstaff undertaken by the UK trade union the Association of University Teach-ers (AUT) shows the extent of the pay gap among full-time academic staff(teaching and research staff combined) in higher education in the UK. Theaverage gap, or more precisely, the difference between male and female payas a percentage of male pay for the academic year 2002–2003 was 14.9 percent.

However, the extent of this gender pay gap is not uniform across alluniversities. For example, at the time of this AUT analysis the largest gap infull-time pay for a university was 34.7 per cent while at the other end of thespectrum, two universities actually paid their female employees, on average,slightly more than their male employees. While the purpose of this article isnot specifically to examine which institutions have bigger or smaller paygaps, it is interesting to note that those with the largest pay gaps tend to beolder universities who often teach medicine while those with smaller paygaps tend to be newer or smaller universities (AUT, 2004).

Higher education institutions in the UK have recently undergone a sub-stantial change in their pay structures by implementing a national frameworkagreement to modernize pay. Pay modernization was implemented in 2007 atUniversity A, although a large number of appeals are ongoing, especiallyamongst administrative grades. This framework is likely to have an impactupon the size and nature of the gender pay gap. At the heart of the agreementis the creation of a new single pay and grading structure applicable to moststaff (i.e., up to senior staff). The old system consisted of different pay spinesand grading structures for different staff groups, thus, making it nearlyimpossible to compare directly pay and grading decisions across universities.The aim of the new pay structure is to allow direct comparisons between thework of different staff groups and to ensure equal pay for work of equal value(Joint Negotiating Committee for Higher Education Staff, 2003).

GENDER, PAY AND WORK SATISFACTION AT A UK UNIVERSITY 623

© 2008 The Author(s) Volume 16 Number 5 September 2009Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

To enable that the principle of equal pay for work of equal value is imple-mented, there needs to be a rationalization of current pay structures to ensurethat staff are being paid fairly and equitably for the jobs they undertake. Workcurrently being undertaken in universities includes job evaluation, harmoni-zation of working hours and the development of policies for attraction andretention premium payments. At University A staff have already been trans-ferred to the new single spine, although the new grading structure has yet tobe fully implemented. The outcome of pay modernization will take severalyears to become fully apparent and this article is a snapshot of one universitybefore the framework has been implemented. The extent to which the sizeand nature of the pay gap changes in the future will depend, to a large degree,upon how successfully the framework is implemented over the coming years.

Causes of the gender pay gap in higher education in the UK

In the following section this article demonstrates that not only is the genderpay gap variable across institutions, it is also variable across staff gradeswithin one institution. First of all, however, it is worth taking a brief look atthe causes of the gender pay gap at higher educational institutions in the UKin order to contextualize the findings of this article.

Briefly, the Women and Work Commission has recently outlined the maincauses of the gender pay gap (in all occupations, not just at universities) asbeing women’s labour market experience (both its length and the number ofinterruptions to paid work), part-time working and occupational segregation(Women and Work Commission, 2005).

Women still take the primary responsibility for childcare and in additionwomen are also more likely to take responsibility for elder care (Unison, 2002)Furthermore, despite the introduction in 1999 of legislation that made paren-tal leave a right for employees, there is little evidence to suggest that a moreequitable division of childcare responsibilities has been achieved (Dermott,2001), although it is worth pointing out that the changes to maternity andpaternity pay included in the government’s Work and Families Bill (2006)could possibly be beneficial in this respect. However, the state of play at thetime of writing is that women generally have less time in the work system andtherefore less time to gain the experience that can lead to promotion andhigher pay.

On the other hand, although there is a large proportion of truth in this,there is also evidence to suggest that the pay gap exists even for women whodo not marry or have children (Rubery, 1998). Neither are all women involvedin caring for elders (the 2001 census identified some 1.9 million unpaid maleand female carers in total, a figure far short of the total female workingpopulation (National Statistics, 2006)), thus suggesting that there are otherfactors at play.



The impact of part-time employment on the gender pay gap has been welldocumented. There are over four times as many women working part time asmen and the pay gap between women working part time and men workingfull time (adjusted appropriately pro rata) is larger than the full-time/full-time gender pay gap (Women and Work Commission, 2005). Beechey andPerkins (1987) argued that there is nothing inherently full time or part timeabout particular jobs but that certain jobs have been constructed as part time.Furthermore, the women doing them lack opportunities for promotion andthe jobs are invariably low paid (Beechey and Perkins, 1987). In addition,working part time is not necessarily a result of caring responsibilities, sinceonly 44 per cent of women who are working part time have dependentchildren (Walby and Olsen, 2002). Furthermore, many women who work parttime are poorly educated and work in low skilled jobs, such as cleaners, salesassistants and care assistants (Women and Work Commission, 2005) makingmuch part-time work insecure, low-paid and with little by way of training orpromotion prospects (Crompton, 1997). Occupational segregation does notjust occur vertically but also horizontally and women dominate the five Cs ofcleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical work, all of which are lowpaid and frequently part time (Women and Work Commission, 2005). Thus,horizontal occupational segregation is a major factor contributing to the paygap (Unison, 2002).

In addition it has also been suggested that men and women start theirworking lives on different salaries, which means that women’s salaries arealways lagging behind those of men. For example, research has suggested thatfemale graduates are appointed on salaries some 15 per cent below malegraduates and that men tend to bargain more about their pay or startingsalaries (Unison, 2002). This was supported by work by the Equal Opportu-nities Commission (2002), who found that a quarter of male studentsexpected to earn more than their female counterparts after both five and tenyears while only one in ten female students expected to have higher earningsthan their male counterparts. The Equal Opportunities Commission studyalso found that women are less likely to ask for a pay rise or regrading thanmen. In addition, men attached more importance to informal negotiation thanwomen did (Equal Opportunities Commission, 2002).

There are also a number of issues that are particularly relevant to highereducation institutions and which apply to the state sector more generally.Universities have well-defined systems of pay scales but despite this, payinequity still occurs. A paper on unequal pay by the trade union Unisonsuggests that this is because value judgements are made about the pay pointsfor individuals. Thus, although the system may be fair in theory, it is admin-istered by people who have to make subjective choices, which can work to thedetriment of women (Unison, 2002). Indeed, the Women and Work Commis-sion acknowledged that discrimination (although not necessarily direct dis-crimination) has a role to play in perpetuating the gender pay gap (Women



and Work Commission, 2005). However, the value of the Women and WorkCommission report has been seriously questioned by the trade unionNational Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE,2006) who called it ‘naive and weak’ since it did not recognize that women areoften on different types of contracts and yet doing the same work.

In addition, it has been suggested that, for academic staff, publications area major determinant of salary (Ward, 2001) and evidence from previousresearch suggests that women academics have lower publications record thanmale academics (Blackaby et al., 2005) and furthermore that they have becomestereotyped as less ‘research active’ (Harley, 2003). This is a severe disadvan-tage as a publications record is also important for career progression (Harley,2003). It has also been suggested that male academics are paid more thanwomen because they receive more offers of work outside the university andthis drives their salary upwards (Blackaby et al., 2005).

Finally, there may also be another factor at play. This article has alreadynoted how the research of the AUT highlights how the gender pay gap variesacross institutions (AUT, 2004). In addition to this the AUT’s statistics suggestthat universities that have high proportions of ‘research only’ staff are morelikely to have larger pay gaps. For example, in the ten institutions with thelargest pay gap an average of 34.5 per cent of academic staff perform aresearch-only function. At the other end of the scale, the ten institutions withthe smallest pay gap have an average of 8.1 per cent of academic staff per-forming a research-only function (AUT, 2004). Given the analysis of the paygap at University A that follows, the role of job grade in determining the sizeof pay gap becomes more apparent.

The gender pay gap at University A

The gender pay gap at University A for academic staff, as found by the AUT,was 8.7 per cent (AUT, 2004). Thus, the university generally takes a middlerank in terms of the severity of its pay gap. This would seem to be in keepingwith its character as a relatively new and large university without a history ofteaching medicine and the fact that in the year 2002–2003 15.2 per cent of itsacademic staff were on research-only contracts.

An analysis of the pay gap for all staff grades working at University A in2003 provided more in-depth information than the AUT analysis, and showedthat the pay gap is not uniform across all grades of staff. The pay scalesreferred to are from the old system of grading, before the implementationof the single spine. However, this does have the advantage of makingthis analysis a useful base study that can later be used as a comparison toassess the impact of the single pay spine on gender pay inequality in highereducation.



The analysis at University A used full-time equivalent pay and reveals thatthe gap is variable amongst staff grade. It is highest amongst administrativestaff (22%) followed by manual staff (17%) and research staff (16%). The paygap for both academic (teaching staff) and technical staff was relatively low at6 and 4 per cent, respectively.

The data shown in Table 1 also show the percentage of female staff in eachstaff grade. This demonstrates quite clearly how there is horizontal occupa-tional segregation at University A, where administrative and manual staff(such as clerical staff, cleaners and catering staff) are much more likely to bewomen. In addition, the size of the gender pay gap generally increases withthe proportion of female staff who are in each grade. Thus, horizontal occu-pational segregation appears to be related to the size of the pay gap.

This analysis is useful since much of the debate about staff experienceand/or pay at universities has centred on academic staff (that is, teaching andresearch staff combined) and has tended to either disregard the other types ofstaff or to assume that their conditions are similar to the academic staff. Thisanalysis shows that the different staff groups are working under differentlevels of pay gap. Therefore, when considering satisfaction with pay, the staffgroups must be examined and analysed separately, otherwise the results willnot truly reflect what is actually happening on the ground.

Table 2 illustrates the vertical occupational segregation at University Aamong both administrative and academic staff, with women clustered in thelower paid occupations and at lower points in occupational grades. However,things are slightly different for technical staff. The pattern is less pronouncedand there are actually slightly more women at principal grade. This may berelated to the fact that a relatively small number of women is in this staffgroup. Research and manual staff are not included in this analysis due to alack of human resources data that gives a breakdown of the grades.

Table 3 shows the pay gap for each scale point for administrative, teachingand technical grades. There are variations in the results but generally, for

Table 1: Full time equivalent gender pay gap by grade at University A

nFemalepay

Malepay

Averagepay

Differenceas %of malepay

Proportionof staffwho arewomen

Administrative 1,278 17,316 22,289 18,559 22 75.0Manual 492 10,548 12,730 11,307 17 65.2Researcher 161 20,374 24,289 22,441 16 47.2Teaching 967 33,584 35,625 34,835 6 38.7Technical 216 18,926 19,813 19,669 4 16.2



Table 2: Vertical occupational segregation at University A(%)

Women Men

Full time administrativeScale 1–3 37.1 26.0Scale 4–6 44.3 25.4Senior officer 10.2 20.1Principal officer 7.5 19.4Senior staff 0.8 8.8

TeachingLecturer 7.5 4.7Senior lecturer 71.4 58.3Principal lecturer 16.0 25.8Senior staff 5.1 11.1

TechnicalScale 1–3 17.1 10.5Scale 4–6 65.7 63.5Senior officer 8.6 18.2Principal officer 8.6 7.7

Table 3: Average full time equivalent salary by gender and grade

Women(£)

Men(£)

Overall(£)

Difference betweenmale and female payas % of male pay

AdministrativeScale 1–3 13,224 13,044 13,190 1.4Scale 4–6 17,081 17,019 17,071 0.4Senior officer 23,122 23,957 23,452 -3.5Principal officer 28,177 30,108 29,071 -6.4Senior staff 42,560 43,620 43,384 -2.4

TeachingLecturer 25,372 25,414 25,393 -0.2Senior lecturer 32,555 32,740 32,659 -0.6Principal lecturer 38,072 39,042 38,769 -2.5Senior staff 45,977 47,005 46,775 -2.2

TechnicalScale 1–3 13,124 14,948 14,510 -12.2Scale 4–6 18,644 18,544 18,564 0.5Senior officer 23,150 23,998 23,928 -3.5Principal officer 28,317 26,980 27,217 5.0



administrative and teaching grades the size of the pay gap at each scale pointis not particularly large (and in the case of the lower grades for administrativestaff it is actually negative). However, the size of the gap does seem to riseamong the higher grades. Among technical staff, although there is a large gapat the lowest level this is eliminated at principal level where women actuallyearn more then men.

Overall, although the gender pay gap in each scale point is not consistentfor the three groups of staff, what is apparent is that the vertical occupationalsegregation, with women clustered in the lower grades, is having a largeimpact upon the average pay gap for each staff group at University A. Thus,the large numbers of female staff in the lower grades is widening the size ofthe pay gap.

Table 4 shows the proportion of female staff who are part time in each ofthe staff grades. Overall, it can be seen that University A has a higher pro-portion of women than men who work part time. However, there is noobvious pattern with regard to the proportion of female staff who are parttime and the size of the pay gap. Indeed, the proportions of technical andadministrative staff who are part time are similar and yet the pay gapbetween them is quite different.

Thus, at University A we see a gender pay gap that is at its most severein administrative grades and least severe in teaching and technical posts. Inaddition, we see horizontal occupational segregation, with women beingmore likely to be employed in administrative and manual jobs. Converselythere are lower proportions of women in working in technical jobs. Thereappears to be a relationship between the proportions of women working ateach grade and the size of the gender pay gap, although there does notappear to be a link between part-time working and the size of the pay gapvisible at University A. There is also vertical occupational segregation atuniversity A with women being clustered in the lower grades. However,there is not a consistent pay gap in each point of pay within the differentscales.

Table 4: Part-time working at University A and the gender pay gap

Part-timewomen %

Part-timemen %

Pay gap (Differenceas % of male pay)

Administrative 34.7 7.2 22Manual 92.5 34.5 17Researcher 15.8 5.9 16Teaching 25.1 6.1 6Technical 31.4 3.3 4



The staff satisfaction survey at University A

The findings discussed in this article derive from a staff satisfaction surveyconducted at University A. The staff satisfaction approach developed byHarvey et al., (1997) utilizes a quantitative approach that makes it easy tocompare the responses between different groups of staff. The approach usesa seven-point satisfaction scale and a seven-point importance scale and thencombines the results of these two variables into one single score (Harvey et al.,1997). However, to include significance tests on the cross tabulations under-taken for this article, the results are presented either as satisfaction results orimportance results on their own and not as a combined score. In addition, forease of reading the seven-point scores are collapsed into three simplifiedcategories: ‘satisfied’, ‘neutral’ or ‘dissatisfied’.

The staff satisfaction survey at University A was sent out during the aca-demic year 2003–2004 to most employees. In total, 2667 questionnaires weredistributed to staff and 1007 questionnaires were completed and returned,thus giving a response rate of 37.8 per cent. The sample included a range ofstaff and there was no bias towards teaching staff. Of all the respondents, 48per cent of were administrative and 30 per cent were academic. The remain-der comprised researchers, technical, senior posts, heads of departments orschools and a very small proportion of manual staff who specifically wishedto be included in the survey. These data are given in Table 5, although itshould be noted that the total number of respondents given in this table issmaller than the total number of respondents for the survey as some staff didnot complete the classification section of the questionnaire. Overall, theresponse was considered largely representative of the composition of theuniversity and included in fair proportion all schools and departments,full-time and part-time staff, men and women, disabled and non-disabled

Table 5: Responses by staff grade

Staff gradeNumber ofrespondents Sample (%)

Administrative 476 47.9Academic 296 29.8Research 48 4.8Technical 86 8.7Senior 64 6.4Head 14 1.4Manual staff 4 0.4Other 6 0.6Total 994 100.0



staff and all age groups. There was no difference in the demographic profileof the non-response group when compared to the response group.

However, manual staff at the university were not directly invited to par-ticipate in this survey. Instead, they undertook a different type of satisfactionsurvey that was focused entirely on their needs and experiences and did notinclude many of the questions included in the main survey. This approachwas made at the request of the management of manual staff who wished toadopt specific and tailored feedback methods for this group. This meant thatmanual staff were not asked to complete a questionnaire which, their man-agers argued, had previously although not necessarily always been perceivedto be both irrelevant and daunting to this group. However, in order to ensurethat a spirit of inclusion was fostered, it was explained to the manual staff thatany member who wished to participate could ask for and complete a ques-tionnaire if they wanted to, and a small percentage did, in fact, take up thisoffer. In some ways, this political requirement regarding the administrationof the survey is unfortunate, since the manual staff experience a high genderpay gap and it would have been beneficial to analyse the findings from thisgroup of staff. However, given the sincere concerns of their managers regard-ing the relevance and daunting nature of the survey, it is possible that the staffsatisfaction survey would not have been the correct tool to achieve this aim.

As can be seen in Table 5 there were only two grades of staff with a largenumber of responses; administrative and academic (because there are highernumbers of these staff work in universities). However, there is a knock-oneffect of this for the analysis. Once each staff grade group is split into men andwomen and analysed separately, the proportions of respondents in staffgroups other than academic and administrative becomes too small for reli-able analysis. The analysis for this article is therefore limited to academic andadministrative staff.

Satisfaction with pay and conditions at University A

Previous satisfaction studies have highlighted the fact that women tend toexpress higher levels of job and pay satisfaction than men (for example, Clark,1997; Crosby, 1982; Young, 1999). These findings appear to support Mincerand Polachek’s (1974) economic human capital theory, which suggest thatwomen invest less in work and expect less from it and so are more easilysatisfied. This theory has been subject to criticism, particularly the suggestionthat women invest more in home and family life and so as a result, invest lessin work. Alford suggests that ‘labour market trends may cause rather than bea consequence of patterns of marriage, fertility and divorce rates’ and that assuch, the whole theory employs circular and unscientific logic which does notactually explain anything (Alford, 1995, p. 19).



Despite this, the evidence to date does seem to suggest that women athigher education institutions are more satisfied with their pay than their malecolleagues. Titus Oshagbemi found that while both male and female academ-ics were dissatisfied with their pay, men were significantly more dissatisfiedthan women. In addition, satisfaction increased with rank for both men andwomen, but particularly so for women (Oshagbemi, 2000a). In a similar vein,research into stress for academic and related staff found that women workingin higher education had higher levels of satisfaction than men (Kinman, 1998).

The survey undertaken at University A enquired about a number ofaspects of satisfaction with pay and conditions, including not just satisfactionwith pay but also opportunities for development or training as well aspromotion opportunities and pensions. In other words, the questionnairecovered a broad definition of women’s satisfaction with pay in higher educa-tion that includes their opportunities to earn more and their financial securityafter retirement.

On initial inspection, the findings from the staff satisfaction survey seem tobe in keeping with previous research on work satisfaction in that women,when looked at as one group, expressed higher levels of satisfaction with theirpay and conditions than their male colleagues, despite the fact that they arequite obviously paid less and also in less senior positions than their malecolleagues. These results are shown in Table 6, which also displays thePearson’s chi square result. Any chi square result with a probability smallerthan 0.05 is interpreted as statistically significant. The results show that inparticular, 32.6 per cent of men were dissatisfied with their pay compared toonly 18.7 per cent of women. Men were also significantly more likely to bedissatisfied with their pension, opportunities for regrading and promotion,training and development to do their current job, security of employmentand length of contract, the availability of resources for staff development andopportunities to attend conferences and courses.

As already discussed, higher levels of work satisfaction for women hasbeen explained in terms of women’s expectations of pay and work. Thus, inthe same way that the gender pay gap is explained by starting salaries andwomen’s expectations of what they should be paid, women’s greater satisfac-tion at work is explained by the fact that women expect lower pay than menboth at career entry and career peak (Gasser et al., 2000; Iverson, 2000). Thus,the suggestion is that if women are expecting less financial reward from theirjob then they are more easily satisfied with their pay. However, these surveyfindings cast some doubt on this by showing that men and women do nothold differing views of the importance of pay, their pension, the security oftheir employment/length of their contract or opportunities for regrading,although there is some difference in their views of training and developmentto do their current job and the availability of resources for staff development(Table 7). Again, a chi square result of less than 0.05 is viewed as statisticallysignificant. If men and women really did expect different levels of pay, then it



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mpl

esi

ze=

921.



would be expected that this would be reflected in them ascribing differentlevels of importance to it, which is not found to be true in this survey.Measuring the importance attributed by individuals to something is a trickybusiness, as one person’s ‘very important’ might be another’s ‘slightly impor-tant’. However, overall these findings do show that satisfaction with pay ismore complicated than previous analysis has suggested.

In addition, the human capital theory does not explain the variations inresponses between different groups of staff. In this study at University A,administrative women showed statistically significant higher levels of satis-faction with all aspects of their pay and conditions, apart from ‘security ofemployment/length of contract’, than female academics. Male administrativestaff also displayed higher levels of satisfaction than the male academics apartfrom with ‘your present salary/pay’, ‘opportunities for regrading and pro-motion’ and ‘security of employment/length of contract’ (Table 8), suggest-ing that the staff grade is likely to be a contributory factor to staff satisfactionlevels and that the analysis based on gender alone is overly simplistic. Oncemore, a chi square value of less than 0.05 is taken to be statistically significant.

Finally, when the importance of pay and conditions is considered, someinteresting differences emerge between administrative and academic staff(Table 9). In particular, it is noticeable that female administrative staffattribute higher levels of importance to their pay than female academicstaff (once more a chi square value of less than 0.05 is viewed as statisticallysignificant). Thus, although administrative women experience the largest paygap at University A, they rate pay as more important than academic women.This suggests that the human capital theory does not truly reflect how womenperceive their pay and work. Furthermore, the difference in attitudes betweenwomen of different grades suggests that issues other than gender are impor-tant here. These are discussed further in the following section.

The importance of education, non gender-segregatedoccupations and expressing dissatisfaction

There is evidence to suggest that the difference between administrative andacademic women’s satisfaction levels can be explained by the influence ofnon-gender-segregated occupations and educational background. However,the evidence from this research at University A requires further developmentto fully support previous findings on the latter issue.

Previous research has suggested that there is higher pay satisfaction amonglower paid women than among higher paid women and that this might bebecause lower paid women often work in single-sex environments. Thereforethese women compare their own pay with similarly low-paid women ratherthan with higher paid men. Satisfaction is therefore relative to expectationsthat depend on the work environment (Graham and Welbourne, 1999). The



Tab

le8:

Pro

port

ion

ofac

adem

ican

dad

min

istr

ativ

est

affs

atis

fied

wit

hpa

y,co

ndit

ions

and

prom

otio

nsat

Uni

vers

ity

A,a

naly

sed

byge

nder

Ad

min

(%)

Aca

dem

ic(%

)

Chi

squa

reva

lue

‘p’

Wom

enSa

tisfi

edN

eutr

alD

issa

tisfi

edSa

tisfi

edN

eutr

alD

issa

tisfi

ed

Your

pres

ent

sala

ry/

pay

16.1

68.9

15.0

12.6

57.5

29.9

0.00

1Pe

nsio

n40

.556

.53.

033

.157

.09.

90.

006

Opp

ortu

niti

esfo

rre

grad

ing

and

prom

otio

n13

.551

.535

.05.

042

.952

.10.

001

Trai

ning

and

dev

elop

men

tto

do

curr

ent

job

48.1

46.0

5.9

15.7

62.2

22.0

0.00

0Se

curi

tyof

empl

oym

ent/

leng

thof

cont

ract

48.6

44.7

6.8

54.8

41.3

4.0

0.33

4Th

eav

aila

bilit

yof

reso

urce

sfo

rst

aff

dev

elop

men

t39

.453

.47.

315

.049

.635

.40.

000

Opp

ortu

niti

esto

atte

ndco

urse

s/co

nfer

ence

s49

.543

.37.

323

.850

.026

.20.

000

min

imum

n=

484.

Men Yo

urpr

esen

tsa

lary

/pa

y9.

162

.328

.67.

656

.336

.10.

514

Pens

ion

43.1

52.8

4.2

25.0

58.3

16.7

0.00

3O

ppor

tuni

ties

for

regr

adin

gan

dpr

omot

ion

16.0

42.7

41.3

7.7

40.0

52.3

0.09

9Tr

aini

ngan

dd

evel

opm

ent

tod

ocu

rren

tjo

b43

.447

.49.

220

.660

.618

.80.

001

Secu

rity

ofem

ploy

men

t/le

ngth

ofco

ntra

ct48

.737

.214

.140

.546

.213

.30.

402

The

avai

labi

lity

ofre

sour

ces

for

staf

fd

evel

opm

ent

31.6

60.5

7.9

13.8

57.5

28.8

0.00

0

Opp

ortu

niti

esto

atte

ndco

urse

s/co

nfer

ence

s49

.441

.69.

121

.953

.824

.40.

000

min

imum

n=

228.



Tab

le9:

Pro

port

ion

ofac

adem

ican

dad

min

istr

ativ

est

affa

ttri

buti

ngim

port

ance

topa

y,co

ndit

ions

and

prom

otio

nat

Uni

vers

ity

A,s

urve

yan

alys

edby

gend

er

Ad

min

(%)

Aca

dem

ic(%

)

Chi

squa

reva

lue

‘p’

Wom

enIm

port

ant

Neu

tral

Not

soim

port

ant

Impo

rtan

tN

eutr

alN

otso

impo

rtan

t

Your

pres

ent

sala

ry/

pay

80.8

18.9

0.3

65.6

34.4

0.0

0.00

2Pe

nsio

n74

.025

.10.

876

.723

.30.

00.

557

Opp

ortu

niti

esfo

rre

grad

ing

and

prom

otio

n72

.626

.41.

170

.728

.40.

90.

892

Trai

ning

and

dev

elop

men

tto

do

curr

ent

job

77.7

22.3

0.0

60.2

39.0

0.8

0.00

0Se

curi

tyof

empl

oym

ent/

leng

thof

cont

ract

86.3

13.2

0.5

82.6

16.5

0.8

0.59

8Th

eav

aila

bilit

yof

reso

urce

sfo

rst

aff

dev

elop

men

t67

.131

.91.

066

.432

.80.

80.

961

Opp

ortu

niti

esto

atte

ndco

urse

s/co

nfer

ence

s64

.233

.91.

866

.733

.30.

00.

307

Not

e:m

inim

umsa

mpl

esi

ze=

478.

Men Yo

urpr

esen

tsa

lary

/pa

y81

.118

.90.

066

.932

.50.

60.

074

Pens

ion

68.6

30.0

1.4

81.1

17.6

1.3

0.10

6O

ppor

tuni

ties

for

regr

adin

gan

dpr

omot

ion

63.0

35.6

1.4

61.8

35.5

2.6

0.83

3Tr

aini

ngan

dd

evel

opm

ent

tod

ocu

rren

tjo

b66

.233

.80.

048

.448

.43.

10.

021

Secu

rity

ofem

ploy

men

t/le

ngth

ofco

ntra

ct85

.314

.70.

085

.613

.80.

60.

779

The

avai

labi

lity

ofre

sour

ces

for

staf

fd

evel

opm

ent

54.8

45.2

0.0

54.7

43.4

1.9

0.49

3

Opp

ortu

niti

esto

atte

ndco

urse

s/co

nfer

ence

s50

.748

1.3

58.5

40.3

1.3

0.52

8

Not

e:m

inim

umsa

mpl

esi

ze=

225.



concept of relative income has also been discussed by Nguyen et al. (2003).Indeed, it has been suggested that much of the satisfaction of female workerscan be attributed to gender segregation (Loscocco and Spitze, 1991).

In addition, previous research has suggested that higher levels of educa-tion are associated with lower levels of job satisfaction and that aspirationstend to increase with the level of education (Nguyen et al., 2003, Ross andReskin, 1992). Thus, if academic women as a group are more highly qualifiedthan administrative women as a group, then it follows logically that academicwomen will express lower rates of satisfaction than administrative women.

Unfortunately, the staff satisfaction survey at University A, did not askrespondents for their educational qualifications and therefore it is not pos-sible to correlate individuals’ qualifications with their attitudes to, and satis-faction with, work. However, there are some snippets of evidence fromalternative sources to suggest that administrative staff are less qualified thanacademic staff, the most notable being the recruitment criteria at the univer-sity and HESA data from 2006.

According to the recruitment criteria at University A, academic postsrequire a degree in order to take up employment. For administrative staff, asa general rule administrative scales 2–3 usually ask for a good general edu-cation, scales 3–4 ask for GCSE-level qualifications or relevant experience andsenior officers or above require a degree-level qualification or relevant expe-rience. The HESA returns suggest that some 56 per cent of administrative staffare educated to at least degree level. This figure rises to 76 per cent of thoseworking above scale 6 and falls to 44 per cent of those working at scale 6 orbeneath, the grades at which approximately 80 per cent of administrativewomen work (Table 2). Unfortunately however, the HESA returns are volun-tary and incomplete and therefore not totally accurate.

Without hard evidence that the women who report higher satisfactionlevels are the same women who have fewer qualifications, it is difficult todraw solid conclusions about the relationship between education and satis-faction at University A. In addition, many administrative staff are highlyqualified and that there may well be some differences between staff workingat different grades or with different qualifications in the administrative sec-tions of universities. Overall, the link between pay satisfaction and educationat University A is an area that would benefit from further research in orderto establish whether or not there is a link, and what the nature the linkis between satisfaction and education level for women working in highereducation.

Linking back to pay for staff at University A, this research does, however,suggest that there is a relationship between staff grade, expressing dissatis-faction and the size of the gender pay gap. Women working in academic postsare in a non-gender-segregated occupation and this seems to be associatedwith their greater dissatisfaction with their unequal pay. The fact that aca-demic women experience a less pronounced pay gap than administrative



women suggests that the dissatisfaction that they express has, in turn, actuallybeen a contributory factor towards their more equitable pay. If this is the case,then there are ramifications for both trade unions and the ongoing pay mod-ernization process being undertaken in UK universities. If certain groupsof women are less inclined to voice dissatisfaction with their pay, then itfalls upon university managers and administators with the ‘care’ of theseemployees to both raise awareness of the gender pay gap and campaign forequality of pay on their behalf.

Conclusion

This article provides information on the state gender pay gap by analysing ahigher educational institution in the UK, its pay and the satisfaction levels ofits staff. It demonstrates that the gender pay gap is variable both betweeninstitutions and also between staff grades. This suggests that to talk only ofthe state gender pay gap is overly simplistic. This is particularly pertinentwhen we consider that it is generally the lowest paid workers who experiencethe highest degree of pay gap. In addition, at this university the proportion offemale staff in each grade seems to be linked to the size of the pay gap. Thearticle also links horizontal and vertical occupational segregation to the paygap at this university.

Secondly, the article shows that satisfaction levels with pay and promotionprospects do not necessarily vary between men and women (as many previ-ous studies on satisfaction have found) but that they do vary between aca-demic and administrative female staff. Thus, although previous research(such as Oshagbemi, 2000b) may have examined the impact of staff rank inacademic grades, this article demonstrates that it is worth looking at thedifferences between the two largest grades employed in higher education.

Thirdly, the article suggests that there is a relationship between the size ofthe gender pay gap, job grade and expressing dissatisfaction. In this study,academic women work in a non gender-segregated occupation and expressdissatisfaction with their pay. This combination appears to have reduced thesize of the pay gap for this group. However, for administrative staff thefemale domination of their grade and their higher levels of satisfaction appearto be linked with a larger pay gap. In addition, previous research has founda link between education and pay satisfaction.

These findings could have important implications for research on job sat-isfaction in higher education, and indeed on the public sector generally,because they suggest that much previous research has not fully looked at thecomplexities of job grade, occupational segregation and education and howthese seem to link to the size of the gender pay gap and satisfaction withwork. Future research in the twin areas of the gender pay gap and worksatisfaction would therefore benefit from not viewing all female employees in



state sector employment as homogenous and acknowledging the importanceof these issues. In addition, public sector employers and trade unions need tobe aware that some groups of women are less likely to voice dissatisfactionwith their pay. Given this, it is of utmost importance that this lack of voicedoes not result in the issue of pay equity being pushed to the bottom of theagenda for these women.

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