Silent escalation: salaries of senior university administrators in Ontario, 1996–2006

Abstract

The real compensation of senior university administrators in Ontario has increased by over 43% in the last decade. The escalation is especially pronounced for presidents and provosts: their pay has risen by 63% in real terms between 1996 and 2006. These trends have been evident in universities of all types, for both genders and for professional as well as non-professional faculties. Besides documenting this hitherto unnoticed phenomenon, we explore the determinants of this escalation. Increased university size, and the consequent complication of administrators' duties undoubtedly plays some role in the increase, though it likely does not explain all of it. Increased competition in the market for senior administrators may be contributing to the escalation, as may heightened rent-seeking behaviour.

Top‐end salaries and theOntario public sector

“…Most of the public sector subsector rates of change are as high or higher. The rate of change of the average salary of the top 0.01% of university and college employees is much higher at 66%, consistent with the results for university administrators of Essaji and Horton () and Gomez and Wald (). The rates of change for both thresholds and averages for the top 0.1% and top 0.01% for hospitals and for government corporations are also above 50%.…”

Because you're worth it? Determinants of Vice Chancellor pay in the UK

“…This study explores the extent to which VC pay is aligned to performance and whether internal corporate governance mechanisms can make a difference. There is a considerable literature exploring the pay and performance of organisational heads (Shaw and Gupta, 2015), and a growing body of work exploring the remuneration of university heads worldwide (Bachin and Reilley, 2015;Cornell, 2004;Clements and Izan, 2008;Essaji and Horton, 2010). In exploring V-C pay and performance, in the UK, we draw upon a variety of data sources covering the 2009 to 2015 period.…”

Earnings Differences among Senior University Administrators: Evidence by Gender and Academic Field

“…The literature examining the earnings of university administrators is small, and nearly all studies have focused exclusively on university presidents/vice-chancellors. The only studies to examine compensation among lower ranks of administrators have been: Clements and Izan (2008) for the five highest paid administrators (positions undetermined) at Australian universities; Essaji and Horton (2010) for presidents, vice presidents, and deans at Canadian universities; Monks and McGoldrick (2004) for presidents, vice presidents, program directors, and deans at American private universities; and Pfeffer and Davis-Blake (1987) for the heads of development, admissions, business functions, alumni affairs, community services, student placement, athletics, and public relations at American universities. With only two studies examining the earnings of deans and no studies examining the earnings of associate vice presidents and assistant vice presidents, there is significant opportunity to expand the literature in this area.…”

“…The literature examining compensation for university administrators is small and focused primarily on the earnings of university presidents / vice-chancellors. While a few studies such as Clements and Izan (2008) and Essaji and Horton (2010) have examined compensation of administrators below the rank of president, Monks and McGoldrick (2004) is the only study thus far to focus on the gender earnings gap among administrators; however, that study does not consider individual characteristics such as academic field which could affect earnings, leading to a biased estimate of the earnings gap. There is thus significant opportunity to expand the literature examining administrator compensation by considering gender and academic field differentials throughout the hierarchy of university administration.…”

“…The range of these findings likely resulted from the samples employed as each study used data from non-random samplings of institutions drawn from niche subsets of the very large American college market, making comparisons between the studies diffi-cult due to the heterogeneity of the institutions examined. Monks and McGoldrick (2004) and Essaji and Horton (2010), examined administrators below the rank of president and found that females earned between four and thirteen percent less than their male counterparts; however, neither study examined any personal characteristics of the administrators such as academic field and academic rank which have been shown to affect the compensation of university presidents / vice-chancellors (e.g. Baimbridge & Simpson, 1996;Monks, 2007), which undoubtedly biases their estimates of the gender earnings gap given differences in the distribution of males and females across academic fields (Binder, Krause, Chermak, Thacher, & Gilroy, 2010;Brown, Troutt, & Prentice, 2011;Warman, Woolley, & Worswick, 2010) and academic ranks (Ginther & Hayes, 2003;Mcdowell & Smith, 1992;Ornstein, Steward, & Drakich, 2007;Wijesingha & Ramos, 2017).…”