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Women and Minorities in Animal Science: Do Issues Exist?

Department of Animal Science, University of Vermont, Burlington 05405

Corresponding author: K. Plaut; e-mail: kplaut{at}zoo.uvm.edu.

Despite existing laws aiming to prohibit gender and race based wage and employment discrimination, there is a disparity in numbers of minorities and women represented in higher ranking positions and wage earnings in all types of industry including academia. We designed a survey to assess the roles that gender and race/ethnicity play in hiring and promotion practices in the Animal Sciences, and the perceptions of ADSA/ASAS members in regards to hiring, salary, promotion, and collaboration with colleagues in relation to race/ethnicity, gender, and/or child rearing. The survey was published using Perseus Survey Solutions for the Web, and distributed to ADSA/ASAS members via email list serve with a link to survey URL. There were 1490 respondents. Seventy percent of respondents were male, 30% female, 85% nonminority and 15% minority. Average salary for males was $66,738, for females $45,968, for nonminorities $63,134, and for minorities $46,816. Stepwise regression and analysis of variance indicated no significant difference in salary between genders after age, position, and degree were accounted for; however there was a significant difference in salaries between nonminorities and minorities (P < 0.0001). The proportion of females and minorities in higher-ranking positions was significantly less than males and nonminorities, respectively. The perception of women and minorities on the effect of gender/race (ethnicity) on hiring, promotion, salary, and collaboration was also significantly different from males and nonminorities, respectively. Approximately 30% of the women and 20% of minorities felt that their gender or race/ethnicity, respectively, hindered their promotion, salary and collaboration among colleagues compared to approximately 5% of men. Significantly fewer females (32%) than males (77%) had children, and significantly more females (46%) felt that child-rearing leave negatively affected their promotion and salary than males (15%). These data indicate that there are issues to be addressed regarding women and minorities in Animal Science.

Key Words: women • minority • animal science