Background

Research has established that salary disparities exist between men and women pastors in the United Methodist Church. However, little work has been done examining the root and trajectories of these differences within the denomination.

Purpose

In this report, we explore systematic salary differences between United Methodist men and women elders (i.e. ordained clergy) serving in one of the two Annual Conferences in North Carolina.

Methods

We used six rounds of survey data the Duke Clergy Health Initiative collected as part of the Statewide Longitudinal Study of United Methodist clergy serving in North Carolina between 2010 and 2021. We restricted our analysis to elders serving in active, full-time appointments. We ran four models to assess salary differences between men and women elders. First, we calculated the average salaries by year and gender among all elders. Second, we did the same for elders with five or fewer years of experience. Third, we modeled the average percent salary growth between survey waves by gender. Finally, we modeled elders’ salary trajectories based on the year they started in ministry, their years of experience, and their gender.

Results

Although we found a gender salary disparity among all elders—women do not earn as much as men—the gap is slowly closing. However, this disparity did not exist among elders with five or fewer years of experience. When we considered the average salary growth respondents experienced from one survey wave to the next, we found that, on average, women receive slightly larger (but not statistically significant) increases than men. The final model assessing elders’ salary trajectories suggested that salary disparities between men and women were more prominent several decades ago. Assuming a career span of 30 years, the model projects that a woman starting in ministry in 1990 will have earned an average of $6,200 a year less than a man starting in the same year. This gap narrowed to $3,600 among those starting in 2000 and disappeared completely by 2010. And yet, the same model predicts that salary disparities still exist between men and women in the United Methodist Church—a decade after the denomination reached a point where our model projects no gender disparities between the salary trajectories of new pastors.

Conclusions and Implications

Our analysis suggests that, while male elders have significantly higher salaries than their female counterparts, these two groups have been equitably compensated for the past decade. These two phenomena can both exist because past gender disparities reverberate long into the careers of clergy. This is because, even though salaries across genders may be treated equally now, they are not making up for lost ground. For example, women starting in ministry in 1990 may have experienced the same rate of salary growth as men from 2010 to 2020, but earned less during this timeframe because they entered this period with lower initial salaries than men. For this reason, our model predicts that, although the salary trajectories for men and women were equal starting ministry in 2010, it may be another decade before there is no difference between the average salaries of men and women pastors. Nevertheless, this projection assumes that recent trends persist—something that remains to be seen. Only time will tell if this continues or if women will hit a glass ceiling as their careers unfold.

中文翻译：

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女性长者的薪水低于男性吗？北卡罗来纳州联合卫理公会神职人员纵向调查的简要报告

背景

研究表明，联合卫理公会的男女牧师之间存在薪酬差异。然而，几乎没有人做过检查教派内部这些差异的根源和轨迹的工作。

目的

在这份报告中，我们探讨了在北卡罗来纳州的两个年会之一服务的联合卫理公会男女长老（即受命神职人员）之间的系统工资差异。

方法

我们使用了杜克神职人员健康计划收集的六轮调查数据，这些数据是 2010 年至 2021 年间在北卡罗来纳州服务的联合卫理公会神职人员全州纵向研究的一部分。我们将分析限制在活跃的全职任命的长者身上。我们运行了四种模型来评估男性和女性长者之间的工资差异。首先，我们计算了所有老年人按年份和性别分列的平均工资。其次，我们对经验不足五年的长老也做了同样的事情。第三，我们对按性别划分的调查波次之间的平均工资增长率进行了建模。最后，我们根据长老开始事工的年份、他们的经验年限和性别，对他们的薪资轨迹进行建模。

结果

尽管我们发现所有年长者之间存在性别工资差异——女性的收入不如男性——但这种差距正在慢慢缩小。然而，这种差距在拥有五年或以下经验的长者中并不存在。当我们考虑受访者从一个调查波到下一个调查波的平均工资增长时，我们发现，平均而言，女性的薪资增长略高于男性（但在统计上不显着）。评估长者薪酬轨迹的最终模型表明，几十年前男女薪酬差距更为突出。假设职业生涯跨度为 30 年，该模型预测 1990 年开始担任事工的女性平均年收入将比同年开始的男性少 6,200 美元。从 2000 年开始，这一差距缩小到 3,600 美元，到 2010 年完全消失。

结论和启示

我们的分析表明，虽然男性长者的薪水明显高于女性，但这两个群体在过去十年中得到了公平的补偿。这两种现象都可能存在，因为过去的性别差异长期影响着神职人员的职业生涯。这是因为，尽管现在可以平等对待不同性别的工资，但它们并没有弥补失地。例如，1990 年开始担任部委职务的女性在 2010 年至 2020 年的薪资增长率可能与男性相同，但在此期间的收入较低，因为她们进入这一时期的初始薪水低于男性。出于这个原因，我们的模型预测，尽管 2010 年男性和女性的工资轨迹在开始时是平等的，可能还需要十年时间，男女牧师的平均工资才会没有差异。然而，该预测假设最近的趋势持续存在——这还有待观察。只有时间才能证明这种情况是否会持续下去，或者女性是否会在职业发展过程中遇到玻璃天花板。