EXCLUSIVE: Women working in Iowa state government still earn less than men, Register investigation shows

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Median pay for women working in Iowa state government is about $5,300 less a year than men, a dollar gap that has changed little over the past decade, a Register analysis has found.

In fiscal year 2017, median pay for male government workers was $55,879, about 11 percent more than the $50,537 median for female workers.

While the gap in median salaries between the two genders has dropped in the last decade from 15 percent to 11 percent as pay for both rose, the dollar gap remains virtually unchanged.

A typical male worker earned $5,476 more than a female worker in 2007 and $5,342 more in 2017.

The pay gap is much larger in several university jobs, such as assistant and associate professors and lecturers, where men make 25 percent to 33 percent more than their female co-workers, the Register found.

It's an issue that, if left unaddressed, exposes the state to class-action lawsuits, as well as an erosion of talent within its workforce, state and national critics contend.

“This is what I view as a systemic problem, when it comes to women and pay,” said Des Moines attorney Thomas Newkirk, who last year helped former University of Iowa associate athletic director Jane Meyer win a $1.43 million jury award against the university for gender discrimination, unequal pay, and retaliation and whistleblower violations.

Meyer accused her former boss, Gary Barta, of forcing her out because she was a gay woman who was outspoken about gender inequities in his department.

Men dominate top salaries

The Register's analysis of state pay showed that men took home nine of the top 10 government salaries in Iowa, led by University of Iowa football coach Kirk Ferentz’s $5.1 million salary.

The highest-paid woman was Meyer, at No. 9, whose $950,000 in pay in 2017 was mostly attributable to the jury award.

But the true measure of inequity, critics such as Newkirk say, lies in specific job titles held by the state's 59,400 employees.

Female nurse clinicians, for example — positions held at multiple state departments — make on average $73,074 — $18,113 less than men who hold the same title.

And female clinical assistant professors at the University of Iowa make $158,469 on average — $52,145 less than their male counterparts, according to the Register's analysis.

University officials point to factors not accounted for in the state database — such as the fact that a greater percentage of men pursue tenure — as an explanation for at least some of the disparities.

The reasons often used to explain pay differences often center on the disproportionate number of women who work in lower-paid fields, such as social work.

“My frustration is I think there are a lot of people who are willfully ignoring there is a problem,” said Nate Boulton, D-Des Moines, the lead Senate sponsor of Senate File 340, a bill that would create a state "Equal Pay Task Force" that would investigate pay gaps in Iowa's private and public sectors. "People aren't accepting how widespread this is."

Brenna Smith, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kim Reynolds, noted the state salary data doesn't take into account factors such as years of experience that directly influence pay.

Smith did not answer whether the governor supports the proposal to create a task force to investigate pay equity.

"The governor believes paying men and women differently, simply because of their gender, is discrimination," Smith said. "Period."

National and statewide differences

Gender-based pay differences are hardly unique to Iowa’s state government, according to a study published last year by the National Partnership for Women & Families.

When nongovernment sectors of Iowa's workforce are factored in, the gender pay gap is even more pronounced.

The partnership, a nonpartisan group based in Washington, D.C., found that the median annual pay for Iowa women who work full time is $36,264, $11,034 less than full-time male workers.

Women in Iowa are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, putting them slightly below the national average of 80 cents, the study said.

Statewide, Iowa women earned $8.5 billion less than Iowa men over a year’s time. Overall, Iowa had the 16th-largest pay gap, the study determined.

Families, businesses and the economy suffer as a result, the study concluded.

"There a lot of reasons people use to excuse the wage gap," said Sarah Fleisch, director of workplace policy at the partnership. "Sometimes, people will say, 'Yeah, but you’re not comparing people of the same jobs and you’re comparing averages.'

"But we do know even when you do account for things like education, industry and work pattern, there still is a gender-based wage gap.”

Wendy Robertson, a University of Iowa digital scholarship librarian, was among a group of researchers who in 2016 published “Equity at Iowa,” an online project that reviewed data found in the state’s salary databases.

The project explored reasons for some of the salary differences, looking in detail at specific colleges or majors. It found that many of the college's departments had higher percentages of male employees who had been promoted to full professorships.

Robertson said the group's work parallels efforts by others at the University of Iowa, such as work by officials in the college’s engineering department to recruit more women into science studies as a step to address the issue.

"We weren't trying to push an agenda so much as saying, 'Let's look at this and see what it's saying,' Robertson said. "In some cases, the data looks pretty good, and we tried to tell that as well."

For example, data shows that the median number of years difference between men and women to become a professor at the university's public health and business schools is less than a year.

But that's countered by larger disparities in other areas, such as in the university's pharmacy school, where there is a six-year median gap between men and women who become professors.

Even in schools such as nursing, where women employees outnumber men, it still takes women three years longer to achieve the rank of professor, compared with their male peers, the project showed.

"These are dismaying charts," the project concludes. "The loss of income and status that female faculty suffer as a result of taking longer to make it to the highest rank has a cumulative impact as salary increases are often based on percentages of previous salaries, and some faculty honors are bestowed only on full professors."

Iowa State University Economist Dave Swenson said a salary review based on gender-based averages is important but demands more scrutiny. He noted that differences in the percentages of men and women in some state jobs contribute to the overall gap.

"It remains that large fractions of administrative support employment are female, which do earn substantially less than management, technical and other professional occupations," Swenson said.

What's causing the wage gap?

A 2006 study at the University of Iowa found that almost all faculty pay variations were the result of known factors that were expected to affect salary, including the discipline taught, seniority, tenure status and faculty rank.

When those factors were taken into account, "there were no overall statistically significant gender- or minority-status based salary differences," Jeneane Beck, a University of Iowa spokeswoman, said.

Betsy Altmaier retired in 2015 after working for the UI for 35 years.

The former psychology professor, associate dean and associate provost remembers a stint at the University of Florida in 1977 in which pay for her summer fellowship was cut by about a third because “I had a husband to help support me,” while the other recipient “had a wife and himself to support.”

When she was hired at the University of Iowa, Altmaier said she remembers her starting salary was lower than some men who started in the same positions and who had less experience.

Pay studies — which she was part of in her role in the provost’s office — are “inordinately challenging” because factors such as the value of research and publications can be subjective. She noted that individual pay bumps sometimes are associated with retention efforts, which are hard to track.

"I truly believe there are some differences. I don’t know, however, that they are quote 'fixable,'" Altmaier said about pay inequities. “It used to be so much more obviously this way, but just because it was worse doesn’t necessarily mean it is fair now.”

'An accident waiting to happen'

The Iowa Board of Regents reviews its workforce at the three state universities as part of an annual human resources report.

The report shows women who are part of the system's professional and scientific employee groups make $3,000 to $5,000 less a year on average than their male counterparts.

The regents' most recent faculty tenure report shows men continue to hold more tenured positions.

Newkirk, the Des Moines attorney who represented Meyer, said acknowledging factors that contribute to differences does not address the problem. He has urged the university to more thoroughly review its salaries and address the disparities.

"It's an accident waiting to happen," Newkirk said. "A lack of accountability creates an atmosphere favorable for someone to pursue a class-action (lawsuit) and cost a lot of money."

About this story

The Des Moines Register used the state’s most recent fiscal year as a base for its salary review.

The data includes all salaries in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017, for 59,400 state government employees.

The data includes employee gender but does not include other factors that influence salaries, such as level of education, experience or starting wage. The Register then compared those salaries with data from fiscal year 2007.

The last decade of salaries can be searched on the Register’s website, DesMoinesRegister.com.