Are men and women equal in Louisiana?
Looking at the wage gap, statewide and at LSU, and the state’s ranking as the worst state for women, there doesn’t seem to be a simple answer.
The continuing investigation into the University’s possible wage gap reveals that some colleges have worse pay disparities than others, with large variations.
Accounting assistant professor Christine Cheng is the investigation’s main analyzer. She gave a few examples of the disparities between colleges, some of which have a wage gap, some that have a reverse wage gap and some that have no wage gap.
Within the E.J. Ourso College of Business, the average male assistant professor salary is $11,519 higher than the average female assistant professor salary. In the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law School, the average female assistant professor salary is $6,322 higher than the average male assistant professor salary. In the LSU College of Science, the average female assistant professor salary is approximately the same as the average male assistant professor salary.
Cheng also found that there was a significant lack of women in higher-level roles, raising the concern that there’s something beyond individual choice to blame for the lack of women in higher positions.
“Another big piece to this wasn’t just the wage gap, but there’s a representation gap, as well,” Cheng said. “By college, by level, what we see is, the percentage of females as we go into the higher promotional levels, tend to fall off drastically. And that’s pretty much across the board.”
The investigation, headed by the University Council on Gender Equity, has been in progress since last year, focusing mainly on disparities in full-time salaries for full-time faculty. Cheng said the data the investigation has found has been the result of many hours of careful testing.
“Most people think that it’s really easy to get data, that there should be a push button and it comes out, and that’s not really how that works,” Cheng said. “You gotta make sure that the data is good data, that it’s clean. And by clean I mean in terms of making sure we’re not comparing apples to oranges.”
The data analysis used standardized salaries broken down by college and the faculty rank level, such as assistant professor, associate professor and full professor. The LSU Faculty Senate has seen the results, although the entire investigation will likely take a few more years to be completed. Cheng is optimistic about the response to the wage gap, saying that faculty were already examining the implications of this.
“There’s already been a lot of response from the University and various colleges with respect to it, because there are people interested in figuring out more, about why this is the case,” Cheng said. “About what they can do to take a look at whether things are being handled fairly in different departments. The data we processed was kind of to start that conversation.”
And the conversation seems to be happening statewide, as well.
Amid all the confusion of Taylor Opportunity Program for Students and the state’s looming budget crisis, other issues at the state level have received little attention, like Louisiana’s recent ranking as the worst state in the U.S., or something less known: Louisiana’s ranking as the worst state for women.
Analyzing factors such as women’s health, unemployment, safety and cost of living, the personal finance website WalletHub ranked Louisiana No. 51, officially declaring the state to be the worst for women. This means the state is lagging behind in women’s social and economic status, as well as women’s healthcare and safety. Gov. John Bel Edwards seems to be trying to fix that.
On March 15, Edwards advocated for equal pay and minimum wage legislation to the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee. The committee passed these bills, meaning that the first step to equal pay has been taken. This is his third attempt to persuade Louisiana lawmakers to pass legislation ensuring women receive payment equal to their male coworkers.
“When I ran for governor, I made a commitment to the people across the state of Louisiana that I would fight for fair pay,” Edwards said in his address to the Senate Labor Committee.
On the same day, he advocated for equal pay in a tweet, writing, “It’s past time we do something in Louisiana to make a modest increase in the minimum wage and ensure that women are paid the same as their male counterparts.”
Edwards also commented on the state of women’s healthcare in his March 12 State of the State Address, saying that he was focusing on lowering maternal mortality in the state.
“It’s 2018. Women should not be dying at such an alarming rate due to childbirth,” Edwards said in his address. “I have tasked the Louisiana Department of Health with examining the factors contributing to the increased cases of maternal mortality in our state and developing an extensive report on the policy and practice recommendations we can implement.”
Edwards then talked about his efforts to end sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as other measures he was taking, such as those against hazing and abuse of elders. Edwards later continued advocating for his equal pay and minimum wage legislation.
“LA has one of the highest wage gaps in the country,” Gov. Edwards wrote in a tweet on March 14. “We should be offended that a woman makes only 66 cents for every dollar a man makes for doing the same job. Her groceries aren’t any cheaper just because she’s a woman.”
The statistics are worse for minority women. According to the 2017 National Partnership for Women and Families analysis, African-American women in Louisiana make around 48 cents to every dollar that a white, non-Hispanic man makes, Asian women make 58 cents, and Latina women make 51 cents.
If the bills make it through, maybe everyone will be able to afford their milk.