Professionals Composition and Pay Equity by Gender and Race/Ethnicity
CUPA-HR’s signature surveys have been gathering data for years on representation and pay equity for hundreds of higher ed professional positions. The data shared here can provide invaluable insights for your leadership teams. To view trends in representation and pay equity for custom comparison groups or specific positions, subscribe to DataOnDemand.
Professionals work in a specific functional area in higher ed institutions, such as academic or student services, and their jobs usually require a baccalaureate degree. These interactive graphics show representation and pay equity by gender and race/ethnicity for higher ed professionals over time.
Composition of Professionals by Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Key Findings: Women’s representation has increased from 58% to 61% across all professionals’ positions since 2017. This change is due to slight increases in the representation of women of color since 2017. (Click to deselect “Men” in the graph below to view changes in the representation of women.) In 2023, in the area of human resources, 82% of professionals are women and 28% are women of color. Information technology has the lowest percentage of professional women (27%). Approximately one-third of both human resources and diversity/equal opportunity professionals are people of color in 2023. Librarians and development/fundraising professionals have the lowest representation of professionals of color (14%).
Navigating the Chart: Use the drop down-menu to select a subset of professionals’ positions. Click the labels in the legend to select or deselect specific data in the graphic. Slide the circle side-to-side in the bar to change the year.
Median Pay Ratios for Professionals by Race/Ethnicity and Gender
Key Findings: In 2023, women of all races/ethnicities are paid less than their male counterparts. In addition, Hispanic/Latino men, Native Hawaiian men, and men of two or more races are paid less than White men. All groups were paid more equitably in 2023 than in 2017 except for Hispanic/Latina women and men of two or more races. Pay inequities vary considerably across individual job categories.
Navigating the Chart: Use the drop down-menu to select a subset of professionals’ positions. Slide the circle side-to-side in the bar to change the year.
Methodology: Data were collected in CUPA-HR’s Professionals in Higher Education Survey with an effective date of November 1 of each academic year. (For these charts, the academic year is denoted with the last part of the year, e.g., 2023 is academic year 2022-23). Analyses include only non-profit institutions of higher education; each year of professionals’ data includes data from at least 822 colleges and universities and at least 153,015 professionals.
Median pay ratios control for position. Median salaries by race/ethnicity and sex for each professional position were obtained; then the median of those medians was calculated by race/ethnicity and sex. Finally, each group’s median salary was divided by the median salary of White men to calculate the pay ratio. This controls for the fact that women and people of color may be represented differently in specific positions that pay higher or lower salaries, and it means that the wage gaps present are not explained by the fact that women or people of color may have greater representation in lower-paying positions.