AAUW Salary Calculator Surprise!
Dear friends of women in science,
AAUW national office has posted a calculator where you can enter your college major and your present or proposed future position and find out starting salaries, salaries about 10 years ahead. It also gives you comparisons of men's and women's salaries with this major and position.
Here's my surprise:
I surely was surprised to see women receive 105% of the salaries of men with my major and field! I encourage you to try the calculator and let us know what the situation is according to the census data AAUW used to construct its calculator in your major and position. I suspect physical sciences may not have such results.
cheers,
Laura
Laura,
Thanks so much for posting about the AAUW salary calculator! I hadn't looked at biologists in particular, and what you found is interesting and encouraging information.
Overall, men are paid more in 2 out of every 3 major / job combinations on the calculator in their twenties and in 11 out of 12 major / job combinations in their thirties. So Biology is an outlier!
Best,
Christi
When would be able to see comparable data on graduate level degrees?
Equal Pay Day is tomorrow!
http://www.bpwfoundation.org/index.php/contact/info/equal_pay_day
Laura,
Women chem engineers are 80% right away, but the salaries are higher than the bio ones in your table, which I guess is some compensation. They have not found enough data to show what happens later in the career so that's the only data point shown. I believe 80 is higher than the average, isn't it in the 70s overall? I guess we'll hear stories on that on Equal Pay Day.
I have mixed feelings about encouraging girls to go into chemical engineering if they're going to start at only 80% of what men get, though.
Isobel
Laura-- For chemists, it is 104% when we start out, but then down to 90% at their later data point. So women chemists seem to get a hiring bonus but then fall behind as promotions and raises push men ahead. Does that result from our negotiation deficit as you've discussed before, or is it bias? We can't really tell.
Cindi
