WATERLOO — Wilfrid Laurier University is giving pay hikes worth almost $4,500 on average to 152 female professors after a study concluded they are unfairly paid less than men.

This will cost Laurier $680,000 a year.

Highlights:

•All women who are associate professors (there are 119) will have their wages increased by three per cent.

•All women who are full professors (there are 33) will have their wages increased by 3.9 per cent.

•No raises are approved for female assistant professors or librarians. The university found they are paid the same as men.

Laurier approved the increases after joining with its faculty association to study gender gaps in salaries.

Other Canadian universities, including the University of Waterloo, have approved similar pay increases for women after finding similar wage gaps.

"Gender equity with respect to wages and terms and conditions of employment is an important principle that Laurier must actively support," incoming Laurier president Deborah MacLatchy said in a statement.

UW gave pay raises worth $2,905 on average to all 326 female faculty members last September.

By statistical analysis, Laurier compared faculty salaries taking into account understandable differences related to experience, rank and area of study.

After accounting for these differences, the university found that women were still paid less than men, for uncertain reasons deemed historic and entrenched.

"There's some factors that you can explain, the differential between male and female faculty members, and then there's others that you can't. And that's what we're trying to address," said Pamela Cant, an assistant vice-president at Laurier.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Laurier says it found no wage gap for assistant professors, an entry-level faculty position, because the university has been more closely monitoring starting salaries to ensure fairness.

Laurier's female pay increases are retroactive to last July 1 and apply to faculty employed before July 1, 2014.