The Gender Pay Gap for Behavior Analysis Faculty
ABAI-accredited programs systematically underpay women faculty—audit your salary lines now.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Li et al. (2019) sent a short survey to every ABAI-accredited behavior-analysis faculty program in the United States.
They asked each school to report the salary of every professor by rank and gender.
The team then compared what women earn with what men earn at the same rank.
What they found
Women faculty are paid 6–15 % less than men at every level: assistant, associate, and full professor.
The gap is bigger than the average pay gap reported for psychology departments.
The difference shows up in every single academic rank, so it is not just a matter of time or promotion.
How this fits with other research
Sundberg et al. (2019) describe why leaders created the Women in Behavior Analysis (WIBA) conference. They wanted a space to fight exactly the kind of pay gap Li et al. document.
Rehfeldt (2018) shares personal stories about the “glass ceiling” for women academics. Her stories line up with the hard numbers in Li et al.: both show women face real barriers.
Shepley et al. (2018) mined the same ABAI program list for a different reason. They linked program features to BCBA pass rates, while Li et al. used the same list to expose unfair pay. Same data source, two different problems.
Why it matters
If you sit on a hiring, promotion, or budget committee, pull your own salary spreadsheet today. Check for a 6–15 % gap by gender at each rank. If you see it, fix it before the next hiring cycle. Fair pay keeps talented women in our field and signals to students that behavior analysis lives its own values.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We examined publicly available faculty salaries for men and women faculty members at 16 university programs accredited by the Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI). Overall, 52.4% of the 103 faculty members were women, although there were twice as many men as women at the full-professor level. Our data suggest that ABAI-accredited training programs pay women less than men at all academic levels. Both in absolute terms and relative to the wage gap reported in other areas of psychology, the difference in mean wages for women and men in our sample was substantial. The mean salaries of men were 13%, 6%, and 15% greater than those of women at the assistant-, associate-, and full-professor levels, respectively. At all levels, the highest salary reported was earned by a man, and the lowest salary was earned by a woman. This is an embarrassment for our discipline. It is time for a change, and we behavior analysts have the tools to make change happen. Let us put those tools to good use.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2019 · doi:10.1007/s40617-019-00347-4