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Critical Review
Human Resource Management

A critical review of “Gender, Pay and Work Satisfaction at a UK University”

Academic Year: 2014-2015
Module leader: Professor Tony Royle
Group members:
Ali Husein Padmanegara 14016657
Beau Colle 13031955
Gijsbert Heuvelman 14026852
Pi Wen Jie 13029790
Sylvester Hartman 13032571
Number of Words: 2010

SMITH, M. (2009). Gender, Pay and Work Satisfaction at a UK University. Gender, work and organization, Vol. 16 no 5, pp. 621-641.

This paper argues that the article of the study about “gender, work and satisfaction at a UK University” (Smith, 2009) is a limited research about the relationship between pay gap, staff job grade, occupational gender segregation and expressing job dissatisfaction. The criticism will be about the literature used, the research methods, the main findings and arguments for the conclusions.

In the article, Smith (2009) discusses the gender pay-gap in the UK. By means of an in-depth analysis and a research at one particular university in the UK, she substantiated her findings. The university, where she conducted her research and analysis, is a large and modern, metropolitan post-1992 university. Smith, (2009) tried to demonstrate that there are “several relationships between the size of the pay gap, staff grade, occupational gender segregation and the expression of dissatisfaction”. For her study Smith (2009) also conducted a survey, this survey is the only research method she applied. The main findings of this survey imply that there is a connection between the size of the gender pay gap, job grade and expression of dissatisfaction (Smith, 2009).

Before Smith (2009) tries to make her main points, she uses several ideas to understand why the gender pay gap exists. One of Smith’s (2009) is that women still invest more of their time to care for children and elders (Unison, 2002), which leads to less time for gaining work experience, this could be used to negotiate a higher pay. However Hevalier (2007) stated



References: About Women & Marketing (1997) Women Use MBAs to Jump-start Their Salaries. Available online at http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.brad.ac.uk/docview/206735865?accountid=17193 (Accessed: 25th October 2014) Alford, A Association of University Teachers (2004) The Unequal Academy. Available online at http://www.ucu.org.uk/media/pdf/aut_unequalacademy.pdf (Accessed: 27th October 2014). Brace, I .(2008). Questionnaire Design : How to Plan, Structure and Write Survey Material for Effective Market Research (2nd Edition), Kogan Page, Limited, London, GBR. Available from: ProQuest ebrary. (Accessed:29th October 2014). Doucet, C., SMITH, M.R. and DURAND, C. (2012). Pay structure, Female Representation and the Gender Pay Gap among University Professors. Relations Industrielles, Vol. 67 no 1, pp. 51-75. Gasser, M., Flint, N. and Tan, R. (2000) Reward expectations: the influence of race, gender and type of job. Journal of Business and Psychology, Vol .15 no 2, pp. 321–9. Hevalier, A MIT ( massachutes institute of technology). (1999) “A study on the status of women faculty in science at MIT” Available online at http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html (Accessed October 21th, 2014) Nguyen, A.N., Taylor, J Oshagbemi, T. (2000) Correlates of pay satisfaction in higher education. The Interna- tional Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 14 no 1, pp. 31–9. Smith, M Women and Work Commission (2005) A fair deal for women in the workplace: An interim statement. Available online at http://www.womenandequalityunit.gov.uk/ women_work_commission/fairdealforwomen_interim_statement.pdf (Accessed: October 22nd, 2014)

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