Ontario's University of Waterloo rushes to correct gender bias in salary

The University said that on an average there would be an upward revision of $2,905 in the salaries of female faculty members to be effective from Sep 1, 2016, with no retroactive effect.

Aimee Morrison, an associate professor of the university and an associate chair of graduate studies, said that this kind of inequity had been prevailing all across academia and probably in all fields. Appreciating the university's effort to address the issue, she further said that it was not an anomaly if it was a pattern.

Several other Canadian universities such as McMaster and University of British Columbia also gave raises to their female faculty to bring their salaries at par with that of their male peers. media reported.

Although the University of Waterloo in the past had conducted wage surveys but nothing had been done to give university-wide increases.

The working group further recommended that salaries be reviewed by the university every five year on top of conducting annual reviews within each department. It also suggested since starting salaries and merit were the two key factors affecting pay, that inequity in pay had to be eliminated at the outset because inequity at that point would only compound the issue.

Lynne Taylor, Co-chair of the working group, said that the review's mandate was to simply identify any discrepancy and not any underlying causes.

(Reporting by Chandan Som)

Image: University of Waterloo, Canada/Facebook