The article “Gender, Pay and Work Satisfaction at a UK University” by Maria Smith is an exhaustive quantitative study of a particular state employer. The paper analyzes the facts and figures on salary and examines results from a staff satisfaction survey held at a UK University (University A) and discusses the ‘paradox of the contended female worker’. This paradox states that although women earn less than men, their satisfaction with the payment seems to be higher than in the men’s case – despite of disadvantages such as job security and content, promotion opportunities and sexual harassment (Crosby, 1982). Also, the author explains that these gaps vary from institution to institution.
The purpose of the article is to contribute to the small amount of the existing job satisfaction research for men and women working at higher education institutions. The study described in the paper focuses on the satisfaction levels of two groups of University A staff – the administrative and academic teaching staff.
Despite all efforts in the past, gender pay gap has persisted to the present time and takes place even at higher education institutions in the UK, where a clear agenda on pay equality, as negotiated by various organizations and unions, should exist (Smith, 2008, p. 622). Still, studies show the existence of pay gaps between genders and conclude that women have less promotion opportunities and a lower chance to earn as much as their equally ranked male colleagues (Blackaby et al., 2005). Studies were conducted on different universities and show different results, ranging between a pay gap of 34.7% to the disadvantage of women to small pay gaps to their advantage. A commonly seen pattern is that older/bigger universities tend to be the ones with the bigger salary inequalities amongst men and women, while newer/smaller universities have a significantly smaller