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Less money, less children, and less prestige: differences between women and men academic librarians
(Elsevier, 2021) Eva, Nicole; Le, M. L.; Sheriff, John
Academic librarianship is a heavily feminized profession, with women making up between 72-74% of the workforce based on statistics from Canada and the US (American Library Association, 2012; Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2017). As a result, gendered issues such as salary discrepancies and a glass ceiling phenomenon might be expected to be magnified in such an environment. The authors analyzed linked data from a 2018 census of academic librarians to uncover and examine the experience of motherhood and librarianship, specifically by looking at potential connections between gender, salary, number of dependents, and academic rank. Results demonstrate that women earn, on average, $10,000CDN/year less, are less likely to become a parent as their career progresses, and are overly represented at the lower ranks (e.g., Assistant Librarian) than their men counterparts. Drawing upon the literature on motherhood, salary differences, and career progression in academia, we demonstrate that issues long standing in the profession have yet to be resolved.