NSF's Ph.D. Salary Survey Finds Minorities Earn Less Than Whites

Editor's Note: This story is the second in a two-part series on the National Science Foundation's Biennial Ph.D. Survey. The first part, which focused on the salaries of men and women scientists, appeared in the Aug. 19, 1991, issue of The Scientist. The study was conducted by the National Science Foundation in 1989 for release this year. NSF surveyed 73,611 Ph.D. scientists of varying levels of experience, with a response rate of 55 percent. The findings show that the median annual salary of white Ph.D.'s in all disciplines is 7.5 percent to 11 percent more than what minorities earn. For instance, the median pay for white chemists is 22.2 percent more than the median for black chemists and 3.7 percent more than the median for Hispanic chemists. For physicists, the median for whites is 2.6 percent more than the median for blacks and 4.8 percent more than the median for Hispanics. The study also found that Asian Ph.D.'s earn less than whites in most disciplines. Disparities often exist despite job function and length of employment. According to the NSF data, for example, the median pay for a white female Ph.D. with 10 to 14 years' experience is 3.4 percent more than her black female colleague's salary. Minority scientists say they aren't surprised by the findings. They say the pay gap in science reflects, to an unquantifiable extent, institutionalized discrimination throughout society, especially in industry, in which pay scales aren't regulated as they are in government. But minority scientists maintain that more than discrimination is at work here. They also lament that few minority youngsters are entering the sciences, which produces a small pool of role models for the future and, most important, keeps a lid on the average salary. "It's fair to say that the number of young [minority] people entering the fields has increased, but the percentages have not," says Alvin Rivera, executive director of the National Institute for Resources in Science and Engineering, a nonprofit group based in Rockville, Md., that helps Hispanics. "At the Ph.D. level, we simply haven't had a large number of Afro-Americans pursuing these disciplines," says Jim Gates, a professor of physics at Howard University and the University of Maryland. MEDIAN ANNUAL SALARIES OF DOCTORAL SCIENTISTS BY FIELD AND RACE/ETHNIC GROUP, 1989 Field Total White Black Native Asian Hispanic American All $52,200 $52,400 $47,200 $48,700 $51,700 $48,300 Scientists Physical 56,000 56,700 50,100 51,300 52,500 54,300 Scientists Chemists 55,000 55,700 45,600 -- 52,000 53,700 Physicists 58,600 58,700 57,200 -- 57,300 56,000 Math 51,600 51,900 44,500 -- 47,900 44,000 Scientists Mathe- 51,600 51,800 50,100 -- 48,600 42,700 matician Statis- 51,500 52,900 -- -- 47,700 -- ticians Computer/. 58,500 58,300 -- -- 60,100 56,900 Info. Spec Environ. 55,100 54,800 63,400 -- 55,900 49,300 Scientists Earth 55,700 55,400 63,400 -- 60,900 49,500 Scientists Oceano- 50,600 50,600 -- -- 55,100 -- graphers Atmos. 53,300 54,600 -- -- 48,100 -- Scientists Life 50,700 50,800 46,300 51,100 50,400 50,100 Scientists Biol. 50,200 50,200 46,700 -- 50,000 50,200 Scientists Agric. 48,700 49,000 40,200 -- 45,500 37,700 Scientists Medical 55,300 55,400 46,900 67,100 56,100 59,500 Scientists Psycho- logists 50,100 50,200 44,400 48,500 44,200 45,700 Dash indicates fewer than 20 individuals reporting salary. Source: National Science Foundation Another explanation, minority scientists say, is that minorities haven't entered the sciences in great numbers until fairly recently, meaning that most are farther down the salary scale, whereas white scientists can be found at every echelon of science life. Others say that minorities have been victimized, perhaps disproportionately, by the recession. Researchers from the United States increasingly must compete for U.S. jobs with foreign scientists, who may sometimes be willing to work for less money, the minority researchers say. And defense-industry layoffs and government cutbacks have further reduced opportunities. "We're finding ourselves caught up in the turbulence in American industry," says Lee Cherry, director of the African Scientific Institute, an Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit group. But salary inequality can also be a function of social processes not readily apparent to most people, minority scientists say. In some cases, minorities may not feel comfortable relocating, despite the higher pay that might come with the new job. "We're not as willing to move around as whites," says Cherry. "So we stay lower on the totem pole." Nonetheless, although discrimination and other problems persist, minority scientists report that certain actions are being taken to alleviate the situation. For instance, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., recently formed a steering committee to explore new ways of recruiting minorities and women. One field in which minorities fared better is the environmental sciences, in which, the survey found, salaries for blacks and Asians are higher than those for whites. According to an NSF official familiar with the data, this could reflect the fact that environmental science is a comparatively new field with a higher percentage of younger people, which therefore may not be subject to as many pay discrepancies as other disciplines. And various government-backed projects are establishing research programs designed to work with colleges and universities that have large minority populations. "One can see the outlines of a major push to get more minority Ph.D.'s into the fields," says Gates. Such observations provide hope that pay equity will be attained in the future. NSF's finding "mirrors the rest of society. It represents a kind of bias across society," says Rivera. "But there are more efforts being made to get Hispanics involved in institutions of higher learning. I'm optimistic." Edward R. Silverman is a freelance writer based in Hoboken, N.J.

NSF's Ph.D. Salary Survey Finds Minorities Earn Less Than Whites

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of