Hello. Thank you so much for the invitation to speak.
My name is, yes, Airini. I'm a professor specializing in equity in higher education. My career includes working for governments, the OECD and the United Nations, and I hold the role of provost and vice-president academic at the University of Saskatchewan.
I'll cover three areas today: the University of Saskatchewan's context with regard to pay gaps, actions universities can take and actions the federal government can take. Together we can advance science and research to benefit a more equitable and prosperous Canada.
The University of Saskatchewan is similar to many universities nationally. Right now, in a new cohort of assistant professors, we have more faculty who are women than men. Over the next decade, we expect to see women trend closer towards 50% of full professors.
Even with good news, we know there is a pay gap, especially at the full professor level. There are specific data points we track. We work to evaluate performance inclusively and apply compensation fairly with women, indigenous faculty, faculty of colour, 2SLGBTQIA+ faculty and those with disabilities.
The causes of the gender pay gap that we're seeing are around the full professor ranks and who makes it to this rank, starting salaries and research productivity. Elder and child care responsibilities affect the productivity, and we saw this especially during the pandemic. My colleague Professor Scott Walsworth and others have written on this most recently. There's the time-consuming service work and more teaching and there's workplace discrimination and the achievements of women being devalued and undervalued. This suggests that alongside the pay gap actions, there are also pay discrimination actions.
What can a university do, then, to address the gender gap?
In 2015, the University of Saskatchewan introduced the gender pay equity increase, which was negotiated with the faculty association and provided a lift to base. This narrowed the pay gap by 2% for women faculty. It was a band-aid solution, though, and we are working on systemic solutions, including career progression, training in EDI and anti-discrimination, flexibility in workplace arrangements and access to child care services. We're aware of provinces and institutions that have introduced pay transparency. Research has shown that this can reduce the gender gap and reduce salaries.
On a note about indigenous and EDI pay gaps, in 2023 our university launched the indigenous citizenship verification policy. This means we can now track measures of inequity such as compensation. Following the lead of other universities, USask will launch a regular equity census, and the data obtained will enable us to examine diversity and gender pay gaps and identify actions. We had to put policies in place so that we could start this work.
Two long-term impacts are the gender inequality in pensions—and we know the committee has heard about research by Professor Smith-Carrier and team on the gender wage and pension gap that's about half a million dollars and grows over the career of a woman faculty—and then there's the talent for science and research. Canada is in a global and highly competitive talent market for top researchers. Making a difference in gender equality and inclusion is essential. The alternative may be to continue to lose women and equity-seeking scientists from Canada despite high productivity levels and potential.
You may be thinking that many of the actions on the wage gap in universities will be for the universities to see through, and that's true. Even so, government may wish to consider three levers for change: investment, influence and information.
In terms of investment, the primary route for government influence is through the granting councils. Government may wish to ask for data that universities are tracking and then use this to inform policy. This was done very effectively with Canada research chairs. Granting councils could ask for grant recipients to provide assurance of pay equity within their research teams.
In terms of influence, this committee's report will be influential, because you're seeing pay gaps affect science and research. Government could ask for sector outcomes to be reported on, associated with your report.
With information, ongoing audits of pay and gender are already happening through the government's gender results framework. In collaboration with universities, the framework could generate case studies, beginning with pay gaps experienced among faculty at Canadian universities.
In closing, everyone has a right to be paid fairly. Government and universities can work together to attract and retain the talent needed to advance science and research to benefit a more equitable and prosperous Canada.
Thank you.