UNH President's Commission on the Status of Women
Report on the Status of Women
UNH OPERATING STAFF
- WOMEN made up 68.7% of total Operating Staff of 1143 persons employed
October 1, 1993.
- ONLY 2.3% (N=19) of the Operating Staff were women of color.
- WOMEN constituted 90.8% of the secretarial/clerical staff, while men
predominated in the skilled crafts category (96.5%).
- WOMEN'S PAY RANGES are in middle pay grades, with a virtual absence
of women at the highest ranks of pay.
- TWELVE PERCENT of Operating Staff jobs are 10% or more below market
rates, and approximately the same percent of women and men are found in
these jobs. This marks a vast improvement over 1992-93, when fully 35%
of the Operating Staff jobs were 10% or more below market rates.
- WHEREAS 60.0% of full-time women employees are employed for 37.5 hours
a week, 82.8% of the men are employed 40 hours a week.
Gender Distribution by Job Categories October 1993
Operating Staff Composition
Operating staff at UNH are made up of workers in skilled crafts, secretarial/clerical, service/maintenance, or technical/paraprofessional positions.
1. Women made up 71.7% of the University's Operating Staff of 1143 employees as of October 1, 1993 (see Table 1A). (see endnote 1)
2. Of these 820 Operating Staff women, only 19 (2.3%) are minorities (see endnote 2).
3. Gender representation by job category remains strongly skewed along traditional lines.
Women constituted 90.8% of the secretarial/clerical staff and 72.3% of the technical/ paraprofessional jobs, while men predominated in the skilled crafts category (96.5%). (See Table1A.) Only in service maintenance were the numbers of women and men approximately equal.
Compensation
1. Operating staff wages are still painfully low and some male-female differences remain.
a. Although the median paygrade is the same for women and men in 1993 (see Table 2), actual median wages for women are 11% or more below those of men, a difference of $ 2,000 or more (see Table 3). This shows a significant change from 1992 when the median wages for women were 8% or more below those of men, and the difference was $1400 or more. The reasons for this difference are not clear, but may have to do with the fact that more women than men are employed on a part-time basis, or if full-time, on the basis of a 37.5 hour rather than 40-hour week (see below).
TABLE 1: Gender Distribution of Operating Staff* October 1, 1993
TABLE 2: Gender Distribution of Operating Staff within and by Paygrade July 1, 1993
TABLE 3: Average Operating Staff Salaries by Gender 1993
(Budgeted Positions Only)
b. The median paygrade for men improved more than did that of women between 1990-91 and Fall 1993, thus widening the wage gap as follows:
These figures represent sizable salary differences between women and men of $1300-$1700 or more a year (see Tables 4A-C).
c. Women's pay ranges are concentrated in middle pay grades, with a virtual absence of women at the highest ranks of pay.
Only 1.1% of women, compared with 18.7% of men, are in the top third of the occupied paygrades (paygrades 09 through 17, where employees make over $23,000 a year at the first quartile; see Table 2.)
This seems largely due to women's concentration in the Secretarial/ Clerical category (78% of all women Operating Staff were Secretarial/Clerical workers in October 1993), which has no jobs in the top third of paygrades, and their virtual absence from the Skilled Crafts category (only 0.4% of female Operating Staff fall into this category), which has the largest number and percentage of high-paying jobs, as can be seen in Table 5.
d. Women are much more likely to be employed on a part-time basis.4 Also among full-time employees, they are more likely to work for 37.5 hours a week rather than 40 (see Tables 3B and 6A).
Clearly this represents a certain type of discrimination by job classification coupled with gender segregation in jobs. However, the implications of this are not entirely clear. That is, the actual difference in hours between a 37.5 hour week and a 40 hour work week is relatively small, and some operating staff may prefer the shorter week to accommodate family or personal needs and obligations. But at the same time, the difference is enough to make a gap of $1000 or more in annual salary, which is significant, given the generally low level of operating staff salaries.
e. About 12 % of Operating Staff jobs are 10 % or more market deficient (see Table 7). This represents a great improvement from 1992 when fully 35% of Operating Staff jobs were 10% or more market deficient.
TABLE 4: Median Operating Staff Wages by Sex within Job Categories October 1993
TABLE 5: Operating Staff Job Titles At or Above PayGrade 09* July 1, 1993
| Category | No. of Titles |
no./% of Jobs |
# Women in these Jobs |
| Skilled Crafts | 17 |
40/86 = 46.5% |
3 |
| Secretarial/Clerical | 0 |
0/649 = 0.0% |
0 |
| Service/Maintenance | 3 |
14/325 = 4.3% |
2 |
| Tech/Para-Profess'l | 3 |
7/83 = 8.4% |
1 |
TOTAL |
23 |
61/1143 = 5.3% |
6 |
* Annual rate of pay for Paygrade 09 is $23,303 at the first quartile; $25,975 at the midpoint. (See Table 2.)
Source: UNH, Personnel Services, Operating Staff Job Classifications for 7/01/93. Includes UNH-M, and all Operating Staff with benefits eligibility of 50% or more employed on 7/01/93. UNH-Manchester is included.
TABLE 6: COMPARISON OF OPERATING STAFF FULL-TIME EMPLOYMENT BASE (FTEB) BY GENDER 1993
TABLE 7: OPERATING STAFF SALARIES 1993
Percent Market Deficiency by Gender 
Source: UNH Personnel Services. Operating Staff Data Deficiencies as of July 1993.
This data includes data collected at UNH-Manchester.
Recruitment and Retention
In 1993-94, women Operating Staff on the UNH Campus:
· Made up 69.5 of the 128 new Operating Staff hires, an increase from 62.4% in 1992-93.
· Constituted 68.7% of the 83 terminations of Operating Staff, up from 51.6% of the 91 terminations in 1992-93.
· And took 76% of the 25 leaves without pay, approximately the same as in 1992-93, and 1991-92.
· In addition, they made up 74.2% of the 31 promotions at the end of 1993-94.
Since women constitute roughly 70% of the Operating Staff, these figures are more or less proportional to their representation in the population. However, since we have noted in the past three years that women take more than their share of leaves without pay, we hope to investigate the reasons why in our next report.
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