McMaster University will add $3,515 to the base salaries of all full-time female faculty members to help correct what it calls "a systematic bias" in favour of male professors.

University officials announced Monday it will spend more than $1 million each year to ensure pay equity among its male and female faculty. The change will affect roughly 340 women — about a third of the university's 1,000 full-time academic staff.

"It's an equity issue we felt we simply had to address," said David Wilkinson, McMaster provost and vice-president (academic). "How can we afford not to do it?"

The average salary of a full-time, permanent faculty member at the school (not including clinicians and clinical faculty) was $139,900 in 2013.

Michelle Dion, incoming president of the McMaster University Faculty Association, was part of the joint committee of faculty and administration members that endorsed the change.

"It would have been nicer to not find a gender pay gap," she said. "The most surprising thing, I think, for most people, is that McMaster is doing something about it."

The changes come out of a two-year study of Mac's wages that found a gap between the salaries of men and women.

The study, conducted by McMaster's Office of Institutional Research and Analysis, analyzed staff compensation for a period of two years (accounting for differences in seniority and disciplines). It found that women make roughly two per cent less than their male colleagues.

The study couldn't determine whether the gap — which the university says amounted to $3,515 — was "greater in some faculties than others or whether there was a systematic difference as a function of rank."

As a result, the university decided to boost the salaries of all full-time female faculty. Pay rates will also be periodically reviewed so that any gender-based differences that reoccur can be corrected.

The annual $1-million cost of the pay raise will be subsumed into the university's $400-million annual budget, Wilkinson said. Student fees and tuition won't be affected.

McMaster did not study biases toward other groups — religious, sexual or visible minorities, for example — because there are simply too few faculty who meet those criteria. The sample size would be too small to lead to any statistically significant conclusions, Wilkinson said.

Though it's difficult to say exactly why women faculty members are making less than men, there are several potential factors that could affect pay scale. First, men are more likely to aggressively negotiate higher starting salaries, Wilkinson said.

Men are also more likely to receive more merit pay than women. These bonuses, which are determined by a panel of adjudicators, are based on the academic's body of research and teaching.

"It's not hard to imagine that during the child-rearing years, for example, it's hard for women to be as productive," Wilkinson said.

David Robinson, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, said men also fare better when it comes to so-called market differentials — bonuses or special remittances given to academics to bring their salaries closer in line to what they could receive in the private sector.

McMaster is the first Ontario university to proactively address gender-based wage gaps. In 2013, the University of British Columbia granted a two per cent pay increase to any full-time faculty who identified as female, as well as offering lump-sum retroactive payments for the previous two and a half years.

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Robinson called Mac's decision "a fundamental issue of fairness."

"It's relatively rare that a university acts in a proactive way," he said. "We often have to drag them kicking and screaming into the pay equity tent. This is a refreshing change — they should be congratulated for it."

The salary hike will take effect July 1.