Equal Opportunities in Science? Evidence on Gender Pay Gaps amongst Scientists Working in the UK

The groundbreaking MIT report (1999) was the first study to quantify the disadvantages faced by female scientists. This has been followed by studies of gender pay differentials amongst academics working in the humanities (US), economics (UK and US) and the sciences (US). This paper provides the first detailed study of gender pay differentials amongst scientists working in the UK. Our data allows us to contrast the experiences of scientists working in Higher Education (academic scientists) with those working in Research Institutes (research scientists). We find that there is a gender pay differential of 22% (?6-7,000), most of which can be accounted for in terms of age, grade, subject, research esteem, workplace and domestic responsibilities, but a significant proportion remains unexplained (19% in academic and 30% in research science). Our results suggest that across grades, if female scientists were to receive the same returns as male scientists, the gender pay gap would narrow significantly and would close at the bottom end of the distribution.