Last year, Statistics Canada reported that the University of Toronto had the largest male to female wage gap. This year, due to late submission of data, U of T was not included in the preliminary StatsCan report.

Betsy Jameson, one of the authors of a University of Calgary report studying faculty salary equity, told the Calgary Herald that “it’s particularly difficult now when people tend to assume that the women’s movement is passé, that equity has been achieved, that any remaining inequities have to do with individual shortcomings.”

Due to privacy issues, The Varsity was only able to analyze a fraction of what was used in the StatsCan study.

The numbers did indicate, however, that out of the 27 faculty members at U of T whose salary was above 300,000 in 2010, only 7 were female. Furthermore, only one female faculty member was on the top ten salaries list.

“[U of T has] the largest number of faculty, teaching across the broadest range of disciplines,” said Laurie Stephens, a U of T spokesperson. “This means that there is far more variation in salary at U of T than elsewhere in Canada. The number of women being hired at the University has been increasing almost every year since 1999 and has now reached approximately 50 per cent. As these women move through the ranks at [U of T], we will see this gap close,” she continued.

Sara-Jane Finlay, director of Faculty and Academic Life at U of T, told The Varsity last year that the reason for such a large wage discrepancy was that “[the] market salary in male-dominated disciplines tends to be significantly higher than the market salary in female-dominated disciplines.”

According to Stephens, “many of the male-dominated disciplines are in areas where we have to compete with industry for faculty members (e.g. engineering, business, law, economics, computer science…). It comes down to market forces — if we want to hire the top faculty, we have to compete with salaries in that field.”

“Women hired in these (male-dominated) fields receive salaries similar to their male colleagues,” she explained.

When asked how salaries are determined at U of T, Stephens said that “starting salaries are negotiated at the time of hire and undergo significant checks” at numerous administrative levels. She also stressed that “analysis is undertaken on an annual basis to ensure that the range of salaries remains equitable.”

Stephens went on to explain that increases can occur either across the board, or from an annual merit award based on contributions to research, teaching and service.

While companies and institutions insist that equity issues in the workplace have been resolved, and women now have the same opportunities for professional growth as men, a new Conference Board of Canada study shows otherwise. It indicates that women’s advancement to senior positions has stalled over the past two decades, despite the continued increase in overall female presence in the labour force.

To see where U of T ranked this year in terms of gender wage gap, students will have to wait for the report on “Salaries and Salary Scales of Full-time Teaching Staff at Canadian Universities, 2010/2011.” StatsCan says that it will be released later this year.

With files from the Calgary Herald.