Determinants of Salary Dispersion among Political Science Faculty

Determinants of Salary Dispersion among Political Science Faculty: The Differential Effects of Where You Work (Institutional Characteristics) and What You Do (Negotiate and Publish)

by Vicki Hesli Claypool, Brian David Janssen, Dongkyu Kim, and Sara McLaughlin Mitchell (University of Iowa)

We evaluate hypotheses on human capital and structural theory-based predictors of variation in academic salaries. We use standard statistical models to explore variations in salary among full-time political science faculty, while also utilizing selection models to control for factors that place individuals on different trajectories stemming from their graduate school experience. We report on several findings, one of which is the positive effect on salary associated with graduation from a highly ranked PhD program; a second being the negative effect on salary of a high undergraduate teaching load. Other findings are that negotiation positively affects salary for men, but not for women, and that journal publications increase salaries amongst women, but not men. At the associate professor level, we find a significant gender gap in salary, even with controls for human capital, structural factors, and productivity. We also find a significant effect of race on the salaries of male faculty.

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PS: Political Science & Politics / Volume 50, Issue 1 / January 2017, pp. 146-156