In the UK women earn on average 17.5% less then men.

There are 9 women Library workers for every man, but 3 men for every woman within library management.

There is no magic cure that is going to fix this kind of inequality.

What is needed is more public education about the lack of equal opportunities within the library world, & a lot more campaigning for equal pay with all other workers.

The motto should be that of
‘just because we work in libraries, it does not mean that we also signed on for a life of poverty.’

We all feel the effects of this in different modulations. I am a young black male working in a library. Our local library was first built and funded by a local womens club a century ago or something like that. I am aware when there are metaphysical forces at play. It is usually subtle, unfortunately sometimes it is the opposite of subtle and enforced brutally, but I don’t blame race or gender. it’s more just the error of humanity I guess. I have had to declare my heterosexuality to skeptical strangers just because of my job position. Apparently I’m supposed to drag my hairy knuckles throughout the library if i’m sissy enough to work there in the first place. I know myself not to attach rationale to profile. Not everyone else knows this, or are they even aware of when they are profiling people – seriously – it is sometimes done involuntarily. All I can say is we gotta continue to give reality checks to people, if we disappear they will notice the lack of quality and hopefully they’ll give the next individual the credentials reguardless of what profile they fit.
the majority of the time things are cool. there are definite times when the foolish people do their foolish things though. I am very sorry if it hits us in the paycheck. that sucks.

BUSH: Well, the fact is I’ve been involved for a long time in policy and I think I just didn’t get a lot coverage on it.

I mean, I really do think there’s a stereotype, and I was stereotyped as being a certain way because I was a librarian and a teacher and, you know, had the careers that traditional women have that were considered traditional women’s careers.

If a librarian decides to go for promotion, a dossier is prepared by the candidate, sent to a committee of three fellow librarians, then to a university committee. Promotion in this case is from Assistant Prof to Associate Prof, not any change in duties, but it does come with a $2000 raise. With our male/female ratio almost any committee is going to be two female and one male.

1) I know many women who a) were unwilling or unable to relocate geographically to higher paying positions or b) went to a lower paying job for sentimental reasons (i.e. to be the Children’s Librarian at their hometown library instead of moving to a higher-paying admin job somewhere else. I have jumped several states in the past few years for higher-paying employment, but the people who have stayed in their home regions have stagnated in their positions.

2) More men than women go into libraries only to go into management. I went into libraries to become a manager only; I don’t really have a deep, ingrained love and respect of books and reading. I get my job satisfaction from freeing my staff to fulfill the library’s mission. If our mission changed overnight, my staff would fulfill that mission with no protest from me. Not all librarians feel that way.

As for males’ salaries being higher, it’s impossible to justify, in my opinion, although the article did point out that men are still by FAR a minority in the profession.

i cannot speak to the issues within the librarian community but they sound similar to social work problems.

we are a predominantly female profession where the majority of administrators are male. it seems that they seek out those positions more while women tend to seek out hands on, rubber-hits-the-road type jobs. obviously there is a pay differential between the two.

another issue i’ve been trained to avoid is that women do not negotiate as hard as men do for their salaries, raises, etc. so, if a female librarian accepts whatever is given to her and a male coworker pushes for even a bit higher, when it comes to raise time and they both receive the same percent, the amount is very different. each year they both receive the same rate of a raise but the desparity between the dollar amounts only grows. i’m sure there is a mathematical word to explain this more clearly but i can’t pull it out of my ancient memory.

another difference is biology. when women have babies, take maternity leave, etc. they generally take more time then men who become fathers. some may decide to stay at home full time and return to the profession after a few years. this stops their pay from increasing all while their male counterparts continue to receive updated training, ongoing raises, promotions, etc. when a female returns to the workforce she has to catch up from all that missed time.

what are the answers to this? in social work we were taught to be more assertive when negotiating pay, to not be afraid to ask for more benefits, and to not fear managerial positions. i think administrators also need to be aware of these issues and find ways to decrease the pay gap.

See also; why teachers and nurses (the other two traditional educated female jobs) make a lot more than librarians. Hint – unions and strikes.

(As a non-MLS library staffer, I’ll just point out that MLS librarians make more than the rest of us, and that public libraries, especially, have been exploiting part time employees badly for years.)

http://shelfcheck.blogspot.com/2007/10/shelf-check-125.html

MLib? I’ll have an MS (in LIS) in three classes, and there are still MLS programs floating around, in addition to the majority (MLIS programs).

This field = alphabet soup.