Have Affirmative Action Initiatives Occurred While Unexplained Gender Differentials in Academic Salaries Declined: A Case Study?

Abstract

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and employment discrimination cases were filed. In the early 1970s attention turned to compensation. Has the differential changed in the past two decades in the academic labor market? This paper uses econometrics to see if illegal wage discrimination, at a Midwest state university, has diminished over time. The past twenty years are important because of the effort to eliminate illegal differentials. Research from the Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics shows that between 1979 and 1987 the male-female earnings gap narrowed significantly. (13, 17)