Less money, less children, and less prestige: Differences between male and female academic librarians
Introduction
Academic librarianship is a heavily feminized profession, with an estimated 72–74% female1 workforce (American Library Association, 2012; Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2017). As a result, the issues that normally plague women in the workplace - salary, promotion, and other inequities - are magnified in the library context. Academic librarians must also grapple with the impacts of motherhood on their professional and personal lives in a way not seen in other areas of academia, which is more heavily populated by men (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019; Canadian Association of University Teachers, 2019). It is also known that women as a whole, despite advances in the sharing of domestic responsibilities, are still frequently seen as the primary parent and take on the majority of caregiving and domestic duties (Moyser & Burlock, 2018). Recently, we saw the impact of such domestic duties on women - including women academics - exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kibbe, 2020; Power, 2020). As such, it can be expected that this would be magnified in a feminized profession such as librarianship.
As outlined by Eva (2018), there has been little research done on the impact of parenthood on librarians - particularly those in the academy. The work that has been done is outlined in a narrative review below. In an attempt to better understand why this issue has not been well studied and to add to the body of evidence, we analyzed data from the second Canadian Census of Academic Librarians to uncover and examine the experience of motherhood and librarianship, specifically by looking at potential connections between gender, salary, number of dependents, and academic rank. It is hoped that by adding to scholarship on academic librarianship and motherhood, in addition to issues around salary and promotion as they intersect with gender, the issues uncovered will receive greater notice both in policy and in practice.
Section snippets
Narrative review
The lack of existing literature on the topic of motherhood and librarianship is stark, especially in the early years. While there has been a wealth written about academics and parenthood (Connelly & Ghodsee, 2011; Hallstein & O'Reilly, 2012; Mason, Wolfinger, & Goulden, 2013; Sallee, Ward, & Wolf-Wendel, 2016; K. Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2012), there is almost no mention of academic librarians and parenthood in the literature. What has been written on the topic of women librarians centers largely
Methodology
The Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) conducted its second census of academic librarians in Canada in 2018; the census was distributed to 1827 identified individuals and had 920 completed responses, for a 50% response rate (E. Revitt, Magnus, Schrader, & Wright, 2019). CAPAL generously shared anonymized linked data related to the following relationships: Salary and Gender; Dependents and Gender; Modified Rank and Gender; Salary and Dependents, Salary and
Discussion
Overall, the results are much as might be expected from looking at other professions, as well as trends in the rest of academia. Women academic librarians, at least in Canada, are making less money, not being promoted, and are having fewer children than their men counterparts. On average, women are making approximately $10,000 CDN less than men, and are concentrated in the lower academic ranks. From the results, it also appears that women are generally less likely to have children than men
Suggestions for further research
As mentioned above, our analysis did not include any genders other than woman or man due to the low number of respondents, making any type of summary reporting of trends impossible. While the survey did achieve a 50% response rate for academic librarians in Canada, our relatively small population will possibly always make this kind of analysis difficult. Future research looking at relationships between all genders and parenting in larger populations or with a larger sample size are encouraged.
Conclusion
It is clear from the analysis that women have a long way to go in terms of parity with men in academic librarianship. With salaries on average $10–$20,000 lower than men's, and women not as likely to attain higher ranks compared to men, the profession continues to favor men in all the traditional ways. This is perhaps not surprising, given these findings generally mirror other occupations, but adds more evidence that concrete solutions need to be found to ensure parity between the genders. It
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Nicole Eva: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing- Original draft preparation.
Mê-Linh Lê: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing- Original draft preparation.
John Sheriff: Methodology, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - Review & Editing.
Declaration of competing interest
None.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians for the detailed, anonymized 2018 Census of Academic Librarians data – in particular, Eva Revitt and Ebony Magnus. Without their assistance, and Ms. Revitt's ongoing encouragement, this analysis would not have been possible.
In line with their own recommendations, the authors also wish to thank their own families and the experiences they provided in motivating us to write this article. As academic
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