What explains gender pay gaps in academia?

Gender pay gaps in academia are well documented. The harder question is why they persist.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) tested several leading answers to that question.

Co-authored by researchers from the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and Rady School of Management, the analysis covered faculty across all ten University of California campuses in anthropology, business, economics, political science, sociology and smaller social science fields grouped as “other.”

Overall, women faculty in the study earned 23% less than men. When the researchers accounted for field, UC campus and when faculty began their academic careers, the gap narrowed to 4.3%.

Testing the Productivity Explanation

Did the remaining gap reflect differences in scholarly output?

To find out, the researchers paired UC salary records with publication and citation histories drawn from Scopus author profiles. They also accounted for academic rank.

Faculty with more publications and citations tended to earn more. But adding academic rank, publications and citations did little to reduce the 4.3% gap.

“We tested one of the most common explanations for gender pay gaps in academia: that differences in pay reflect differences in measurable productivity. What we found is that productivity matters for pay, but it does not explain away the gender gap,” said Elizabeth Lyons, corresponding author of the study and associate professor at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy.

Transparency Alone Wasn’t Enough

Salary transparency is often proposed as one way to narrow gender pay gaps. The idea is simple: When people know what their colleagues earn, they may be better positioned to spot disparities and seek corrections.

The UC system offered a useful setting to test this idea because faculty salaries are already publicly available. Yet gender pay gaps persist. That’s not to say transparency has no value, the co-authors write, but it does suggest that public access to salary information alone is not enough to eliminate gender pay gaps.

Representation ≠ Pay Equity

One of the study’s surprises was how much pay gaps varied by field.

After accounting for observable differences, gender pay gaps persisted in business, sociology and anthropology. But the researchers found no statistically detectable pay gap in the smaller social science fields grouped as “other” or in political science and economics.

The contrast between economics and anthropology was especially striking. Women made up less than 20% of economics faculty in the study period, yet economics showed no detectable pay gap. In anthropology, where women and men were roughly equally represented, women earned about 93 cents for every dollar earned by men.

“Women’s representation in the faculty matters and deserves to be better understood, but it won’t necessarily fix the pay gap,” said Gaurav Khanna, a co-author of the study and professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy. “Representation does not necessarily predict pay equality.”

Why Field Differences Matter

The study does not identify a single fix. But the differences across fields give universities a place to look.

Economics and political science, for example, may have more centralized labor markets and more standardized ways of evaluating scholarly output. In sociology and anthropology, where books and monographs play a larger role, output may be harder to compare in the same way. Business fields may involve still other dynamics, including subfield composition, with men disproportionately represented in higher-paying areas such as finance.

“The variation across fields matters because it shows these gaps are not inevitable,” said Marta Serra-Garcia, a co-author of the study and professor at the Rady School of Management. “It also gives universities a place to start – by asking what fields with smaller gaps may be doing differently.” 

Paper: “Gender pay gaps in the social sciences.” 

Study authors: Ayelet Gneezy, Uri Gneezy and Marta Serra-Garcia, Rady School of Management; Joshua Graff Zivin, Gaurav Khanna and Elizabeth Lyons, School of Global Policy and Strategy. Graff Zivin is also affiliated with UC San Diego’s Department of Economics.

Funding: supported in part by the Cowhey Center for Global Transformation (CCGT) at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. 

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2524119123 

Problematic social media use and ADHD symptoms in adolescents

 This study of U.S. youths found that year-to-year elevations in self-reported problematic social media use were directly associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms during mid-adolescence, particularly among males; reverse associations of ADHD symptoms with later problematic social media use were small in magnitude and sporadic. Screening for hard-to-control social media use, time spent on social media, and attention to sex-specific patterns may be warranted.

Complete study

Dropping SAT and ACT may improve access, but hinder college admissions

 Dropping standardized testing requirements may make admission to college more accessible for some, but it can also make it harder for universities to identify high-potential students, according to new research published in the INFORMS journal Management Science.

That research suggests the decision involves nuanced tradeoffs between the informational value of test scores and barriers to access. Moreover, the study shows that dropping the testing requirement can even move diversity and academic merit in the same direction: it is possible to improve both, or worsen both, at once.

The study, "Dropping Standardized Testing for Admissions Trades Off Information and Access," develops a statistical discrimination framework that shows that if you drop a feature like test score review, this could impact the context with which you then see all of the other data used in the review and vetting process. Holistically, the review process depends on the information provided by other application components and how, collectively, that requirement shapes the applicant pool.

The findings add important nuance to ongoing policy debates in higher education: removing standardized testing may expand access for underrepresented groups but can also reduce the ability to accurately assess academic merit, particularly for students from nontraditional backgrounds. In some settings, it improves diversity and merit simultaneously; in others, it worsens outcomes across multiple metrics.

“The decision to drop standardized testing involves a fundamental tradeoff between information and access,” said Nikhil Garg of Cornell University, a co-author of the study. “Test scores provide valuable signals, especially when other parts of the application are less informative for certain groups of students, but access barriers can prevent some qualified students from even applying.”

The study examined the admissions process where schools evaluate applicants based on multiple features, such as grades, recommendation letters, essays, and test scores, while considering capacity constraints and fairness goals. The researchers examined both non-strategic access barriers and strategic student behavior. Using calibrated simulations, the authors demonstrated practical scenarios where outcomes would vary significantly.

“Our results showed that dropping the test can exacerbate disparities by decreasing available information, especially for nontraditional applicants,” said Hannah Li of Columbia Business School, a study co-author. “Still, when access barriers are substantial, removing the test scores requirement can expand the pool in ways that may improve both merit and diversity.”

The study further shows that student test-taking behavior may have some counterintuitive effects, complicating admissions decisions. This is particularly the case in multi-school settings where you may have one school applying a more restrictive standard, and another competing school, applying a less restrictive acceptance standard. The study shows that when some schools drop the test and others keep it, some qualified students may opt out of testing entirely, missing the chance to apply to schools they otherwise would have been admitted to.

“Our findings suggest that policymakers and admissions offices need to jointly consider the informational environment and access barriers rather than viewing the testing requirement decision in isolation in a 'tests good vs. tests bad' manner,” said Faidra Monachou of Yale School of Management, a study co-author. “These decisions affect not just who gets admitted, but also who gets to apply in the first place, and ultimately the academic merit and diversity of the admitted class.”

The study raises important questions about how institutions can balance competing goals, where colleges and universities seek to balance access, merit, and diversity. In the end, the study authors concluded that schools may benefit from investing in better signals for all applicants, while still working to reduce access barriers, instead of just dropping test score requirements.

Read the full study here.

High school track experience gives baseball players an edge

 

A new study from a University of Florida sport management professor and colleagues is challenging long-held assumptions about how young athletes should train and suggesting that Major League Baseball teams might be missing players with a competitive edge.

The researchers found that baseball players who participated in high school track performed better at the professional level than those who specialized solely in baseball. Yet despite this measurable advantage, MLB teams do not appear to value track experience when drafting players or offering signing bonuses.

“It’s a bit of a Moneyball-type finding. There’s a clear performance benefit, but teams aren’t recognizing it when they make decisions about talent,” said Chris McLeod, Ph.D., an associate professor in UF’s Department of Sport Management.

Mcleod contributed to the project launched by Tiberiu Ungureanu, Ph.D., Jason Sigler, Ph.D., and Zeynep Yavic, Ph.D., who share doctoral roots at The Ohio State University.

The study, soon to be published in the Journal of Sport Management, draws on an unusually rich dataset. Supported by the Society of American Baseball Research, Ungureanu, Sigler and Yavic combined decades of detailed professional performance records with nearly 97,000 historical survey responses from baseball players, originally collected by historian William Weiss. The surveys included a key question: which sports players participated in during high school.

By linking those responses to long-term career outcomes, the team identified patterns that previous research missed.

Their findings point to specific advantages: track appears to develop speed, explosiveness and timing — skills that translate directly to success in baseball, particularly in base running and fielding. Other sports, such as basketball or football, did not show the same consistent benefit.

“Multisport participation isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer,” McLeod said. “It depends on whether the skills from one sport crossover to another. Other sports do not consistently relate to performance improvement for baseball players like track does.”

The implications extend beyond professional scouting. For families navigating the increasingly high-pressure world of youth sports, the research offers evidence against early specialization — a trend that has grown as travel teams and year-round training programs become more common.

“There’s a lot of anxiety among parents about making the ‘right’ choice for their child’s future,” McLeod said. “Our study is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that specializing early in baseball alone does not necessarily lead to better outcomes.”

To strengthen the study’s conclusions, the researchers also addressed a key question: are naturally faster athletes simply more likely to choose track? Using a statistical method called Coarsened Exact Matching, they compared players with similar physical characteristics, such as height and weight. Even after matching players on those factors, track participation remained linked to better performance.

The study also uncovered a disconnect in how talent is evaluated. Analysis of previously unexamined baseball scouting reports showed limited mention of track backgrounds or even negative references to track as a distraction from baseball. Players with track experience were not rated more highly by scouts, despite their later success.

For MLB organizations, the takeaway is straightforward: better use of available information could translate into more wins.

“For teams, this is about identifying undervalued talent,” McLeod said. “For athletes and families, it’s about making informed decisions. And for researchers, it shows how much we can learn when we combine new data with long-term performance records.”

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DOI

10.1123/jsm.2025-0223 

Tips to help teachers in 21st century classrooms

 Where to Now? Teaching in the 21st Century is a research-informed book roviding in-depth discussions of teaching, from junior primary to Year 10 levels, while identifying and addressing the multi-faceted challenges that pre-service and early career teachers can face.

Dr Loretta Bowshall-Freeman, co-author of the book and Deputy Teaching Program Director (Education) at Flinders University’s College of Human Sciences and Culture, says the role of teachers has expanded in recent years – and key strategies are required to help pre-service and early career teachers navigate professional challenges while they also maintain focus on teaching priorities.

“This extends beyond the classroom. It includes ways to support pre-service and early career teachers as they prepare for a new teaching role, day-to-day and long-term professional logistic solutions, and effective approaches for working with curriculum and education policies,” says Dr Bowshall-Freeman.

The book also examines how teachers can prepare for new roles within their teaching responsibilities, embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives, navigate curriculum and policy demands, manage classrooms effectively, and design inclusive, engaging and assessable learning opportunities.

It explores strategies for professional collaboration and networking to sustain long-term growth and reflective practice – and also provides case studies, recommended readings and guided responses.

“Teaching today is not a script that teachers simply follow. In every lesson, teachers are reading the room, noticing who is engaging, who is struggling, who’s thinking is emerging, and what needs to happen next,” says book co-author and Flinders University colleague Dr Rozi Binte Rahmat.

“This book was written for those real classroom moments, offering practical, research-informed strategies that help teachers make confident and responsive decisions.”

Teaching Strategies in the 21st Century supports new educators to transition into their roles with confidence, while laying the foundations for a reflective, adaptive and student-centred practice.

“My work in assessment has always reminded me that teaching is not just about what teachers do, but about how students experience learning,” says Dr Rozi. “A strategy is only powerful when it helps teachers notice student thinking, respond to different needs, and create opportunities for all learners to show what they know and can do. That is the kind of practical, responsive teaching this book supports.”

The book – Teaching Strategies in the 21st Century: Where to Now?, by Loretta Bowshall-Freeman, Rozi Binte Rahmat and Michael Colbung (published by Cambridge University Press) – is available as an eBook from 16 July, with hardcopy versions available from 30 July.

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Why Is Harm Reduction Misunderstood on College Campuses?

A new study found that students and staff involved with collegiate recovery programs held very different definitions and perceptions of harm reduction and its role in these programs, suggesting opportunities to reframe this public health approach in collegiate settings in a way that builds common ground and meets students’ varying substance use needs and recovery goals.

As collegiate recovery programs (CRPs) continue to expand on college campuses across the United States, so too does the opportunity to incorporate approaches supportive of harm reduction into these programs in order to provide vital, evidence-based support to students navigating diverse recovery journeys and goals. But a lack of understanding of what harm reduction actually means has led to differing perspectives about this approach and how—or whether—it should be integrated into CRPs, according to a new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers. 

As it relates to drug use, harm reduction is a public health approach that focuses on keeping people who use drugs safe and alive even if they continue to use drugs. It largely gained traction during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the US, in the form of services such as syringe needle exchange programs and bleach kits to combat the spread of HIV. Emphasizing the prevention of negative consequences associated with drug use rather than the prevention of substance use, harm reduction has expanded over the years to include interventions such as naloxone distribution kits and fentanyl test strips, as well as broader ideological commitments to treat people who use drugs with compassion and respect, recognizing that not everyone is ready or able to quit. 

But more than 40 years later, there is still no universally accepted definition of this public health approach. Published in the journal Emerging Adulthood, the new study found that this ambiguity led to five varying definitions of harm reduction among CRP program directors, administrators, staff, and students—categorized as traditional, alternative pathway, preventative, humanistic, and skeptical, and these varying conceptualizations shaped the participants’ perspectives on the possibilities and challenges of integrating harm reduction into CRPs. 

“Harm reduction has evolved from its origins in HIV prevention to encompass overdose prevention, behavioral change, public health, and social justice, so different groups emphasize different aspects,” says study senior author Dr. Noel Vest, assistant professor of community health sciences at BUSPH. “Our study found that these differing definitions directly shaped whether stakeholders viewed harm reduction as compatible with CRPs. In many cases, disagreements were less about specific interventions and more about what people meant by the term ‘harm reduction.’”

While drug overdose deaths among young adults declined significantly for the third consecutive year in 2025 (along with national rates), drug overdoses remain a leading cause of death among young people, and data also suggest that two-thirds of adults with opioid use disorder begin using drugs before age 25. Furthermore, the Trump administration’s recent funding cuts to clean needle programs threaten to stymie the progress that has been made. Alternative harm reduction services in collegiate settings could offset this loss among recovering students, and understanding how people involved with or influential over CRPs perceive these services can inform how CRPs can continue to evolve and expand to meet students’ needs—without increasing drug use or crime.

“There is evidence to support the idea that harm reduction strategies, such as naloxone and fentanyl test strip distribution, are effective approaches to achieving intended public health outcomes,” says corresponding author Ms. Isabel Redman, research project coordinator in the Department of Community Health Sciences and an incoming doctoral student at BUSPH, who co-lead the study with Ms. Erin Major, PhD student in health services research at BUSPH. “But different major organizations maintain their own official definitions of harm reduction, and these varying definitions among CRP staff and students reflect these broader perspectives.”

For the study, the BUSPH team examined perspectives on harm reduction in 60 interviews in fall 2023 with 8 program directors, 4 administrators, 33 students, and 15 staff members across 5 CRPs in the US.

Among the definitions/conceptualizations identified:

• The traditional conceptualization was deeply rooted in harm reduction’s early HIV/AIDS advocacy and viewed it as a means for preventing overdoses, disease spread, and other negative population-level outcomes—and as a separate path that could lead towards eventual recovery. This group also believed clean needle programs would present ethical concerns that would contradict the structure of CRPs, which tend to be focused on abstinence. 
• The alternative pathway conceptualization—the most commonly held view among the participants—viewed harm reduction as a way for people to reduce substance use, but not necessarily with the goal to quit, and believed that harm reduction services and spaces could be offered separately from abstinence-based recovery services. 
• The preventative conceptualization defined harm reduction as necessary changes to substance use culture and environment around individuals that would prevent people engaging in excessive drug use or prevent them from relapsing (such as educational outreach and coaching, or “sober-curious” or substance-free spaces).
• The humanistic conceptualization framed harm reduction as a human rights-based movement and ideology that promotes the belief that all people should be treated with dignity and respect—and without stigma—and emphasized that the voices of those with lived experience with drug use should help inform harm reduction strategies. 
• The skeptical conceptualization—a view only held personally by two student participants—believed that harm reduction would enable people to continue using while claiming to be in recovery and would be a barrier to abstinence-based recovery.

Several overlapping themes and considerations emerged from these five perspectives of harm reduction and its potential role in CRPs, including space on campuses for both abstinence-only and safe/reduced drug use, as well as overdose prevention education and systems-level changes to promote compassionate treatment towards people who use drugs. These overlapping viewpoints signal potential opportunities to create a harm reduction approach that blends multiple perspectives and goals, and places harm reduction on a spectrum, says Ms. Redman.

“Some participants also held multiple viewpoints on harm reduction simultaneously, suggesting that these varying perspectives are not necessarily mutually exclusive,” she says. “Some participants also described that their views on harm reduction changed over time, indicating that beliefs on harm reduction are not stagnant.”

A reframing of harm reduction should emphasize education and awareness of this approach to students—ideally in adolescence before they reach college, Dr. Vest says, or at least early in their college experience, such as in new student orientations. 

“Public health has long embraced harm reduction through evidence-based strategies like seat belts, sunscreen, and condoms—interventions that reduce risk without requiring people to eliminate the underlying behavior,” says Dr. Vest. “Brief educational interventions that clarify what harm reduction is, and perhaps more importantly what it is not, could help reduce misconceptions and build common ground. Rather than focusing on narrow concepts, conversations should center on shared goals like reducing overdose, fostering peer support, supporting student well-being, and helping students move toward healthier lives.”

Future research should focus on developing and testing educational interventions that improve understanding of harm reduction among collegiate recovery stakeholders. Establishing a shared understanding of harm reduction may reduce misconceptions and support more informed decision-making about its role within collegiate recovery. The researchers also note that this study should be repeated among other populations, including the general public, to see if similar misconceptions about harm reduction arise. 

“Continuing the conversation, with a focus on common purpose, will help us to better understand the different dimensions of harm reduction and how it may be operationalized to improve student health,” Ms. Redman says.

Journal

Emerging Adulthood

DOI

10.1177/21676968261456379 

College students who spend more time online are more likely to report suicidal thoughts

 In the digital age, adolescents and young adults increasingly form social connections through online spaces, including social media, gaming and messaging platforms, which serve as venues for identity exploration, peer connection and emotional validation. However, these spaces also create new vulnerabilities, including upward social comparison, exclusion and online harassment that can undermine mental health, including depression and suicidality.

 

While most research has been focused on adolescents, a new study has found that college students who spend more time online (including social media use, gaming, etc.) and those who experience online harassment, are more likely to report suicidal thoughts. It also showed that these patterns were not the same across gender groups. In particular, cisgender men showed the strongest link between time spent online and suicidal thoughts, while online harassment was linked to higher risk across all gender groups. This is one of the few studies to look at both time online and harmful online experiences together, while paying close attention to gender differences.

 

“As with much of the literature on digital use and mental health, most research has focused on adolescents, leaving college-aged young adults underrepresented. In addition, few large-scale studies have examined how time online and experiences relate to mental health across gender identities, underscoring the need for gender-stratified research in diverse, multisite college samples—our study addresses these gaps,” explains corresponding author Seungbin Oh, PhD, LPC, NCC, assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine.

 

The researchers analyzed data from a large national survey called the Healthy Minds Study, which asks college students about their mental health and daily experiences. They looked at answers from more than 46,000 students who were asked how much time they spent in online spaces outside of school or work. They then examined whether students who spent more time online, or who reported being harassed online, were more likely to say they had seriously thought about suicide in the past year. The researchers also looked at whether these patterns differed for cisgender men, cisgender women, and transgender and gender nonconforming students, while taking into account other important factors such as depression, sleep and financial stress.

 

“One especially important finding was that the link between time spent online and suicidal thoughts was strongest among cisgender men, which differs from much of the earlier research that has focused more heavily on girls and young women as being especially vulnerable to digital harms. We may be overlooking an important mental health risk pattern among young men and that their digital experiences deserve much more public and clinical attention,” adds Oh.

 

According to the researchers, providers who work with college students and young adults should ask not only about depression and anxiety, but also about online life, including social media use, gaming habits, online harassment and digital stress. “These questions may help identify students who are struggling but who may not bring up these experiences on their own. The findings also highlight the need to pay greater attention to young men’s mental health, especially because they are often less likely to seek help and may show distress in ways that are easier to miss,” says Oh.

 

These findings appear online in the American Journal of Public Health.