A new study finds the gender pay gap is wider -- 1.5 times wider -- in academic science than industry, despite academe’s progressive ideals and reputation.

“Our study provides empirical evidence that it may be time to reassess the reasons why women disproportionately sort into academia in the first place,” the paper says.

For the entire period studied, 1995 to 2017, women with science and engineering Ph.D.s earned 5.3 percent less than men in academe, compared to 3.5 percent less than men in industry. 

[...] Because the pay gap in academe seems to start growing around the seventh year of full-time work, the authors attribute the pay gap in part to the rigidity of tenure system relative to the more flexible timelines businesses can offer their employees.

“There is no difference in rookie salaries [in academe], and that’s something that I attribute to the change in institutional norms and so on,” said co-author Rajshree Agarwal, Rudolph Lamone Chair of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in College Park. But women “are disproportionately less likely to get tenure. And so they’re disproportionately more likely to stay in academia but shift to these clinical faculty roles,” which pay less than tenured positions.