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Sociology of Sport Journal, 1989, 6, 348-361

Gender and the Salaries of Coaches

Annelies Knoppers, Barbara Bedker Meyer, Martha Ewing, and Linda Forrest

Michigan State University

This study examined salary differences between female and male Division I college coaches using three approaches. The human capital approach contends that salary differences are rooted in differences in qualifications. In contrast, a structural approach argues that gender differences in salary are associated with the gender ratio, the proportion of women to men in an occupation. The third approach, capitalist patriarchy, sees the gender wage gap as a function of the intersection of capitalism and patriarchy. We explored each of these approaches and found the greatest support for the latter. Coaches' wages seemed to be determined for both women and men by both gender and type of sport. Additionally, gender ratio was positively related to the salaries for men only. We discuss the findings as well as their implications for the setting of first-year salaries and the ways in which salary differentiation can be an example of the manner in which gender relations are constructed in sport.

There has been a persistent gendered wage gap in the U.S. despite equal opportunity legislation and the increase in the number of women in the labor market (Coverman, 1988; England & McCreary, 1987; Stevenson, 1988). In 1987 women who worked full time in paid jobs received, on the average, 76% of the average earnings of men working full time. The size of this wage gap varied by occupation in that it was smallest in the lowest paid occupations and highest in managerial and professional jobs. In the latter, men's average median earning in 1987 ex- ceeded those of women by about $200 per week (Bureau of Statistics, 1988). Although there seems to be a general consensus that these statistics reflect reality, there have been various explanations of the salary differences between women and men especially for male dominated occupations. In this paper we identify three theoretical perspectives used to explain the gender wage gap and empiri- cally test them on salary data from women and men in a male dominated occupation. Specifically, we examined the salaries of female and male coaches at Division

Annelies Knoppers, Barbara Bedker Meyer, and Martha Ewing are with the Department of Health and Physical Education, I.M. Sports Circle, Michigan State Univer- sity, E. Lansing, MI 48824. Linda Forrest is with the Department of Counseling, Educa- tional Psychology, and Special Education at Michigan State University.

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350 Knoppers, Bedker Meyer, Ewing, and Forrest

tion of structure. In other words anyone, regardless of race or gender, who is in a low position in an organization, as most women are, would receive lower wages.

Although Kanter (1977), a structuralist, has argued that power, opportunity, and demographic group composition are three interacting structural determinants of work behavior, most of the research has focused on the latter:

It seems clear that numbers, especially relative numbers can strongly affect a person's fate in an organization. This is a system rather than an individual construct-located not in the characteristics of the person, but in how many people, like that person in significant ways, are also present. (Kanter, 1977, P 241)

Group composition therefore can influence allocation of resources including salaries. When women are a minority group, they are seen as different and as tokens, and consequently have little power in determining the allocation of rewards. Thus one would expect that as the gender ratio (i.e., the ratio of women to men) increases, so does the power of women to increase women's salaries, resulting in a positive and linear relationship between gender ratio and salary for women (Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1987). This prediction assumes that the salaries of males would be unchanged and have little relationship to changes in gender ratio. In our study therefore, the regression coefficient for gender ratio on the salary of coaches should be positive and significant for women whereas the coefficient should be nonsignificant for men.

Although several studies have confirmed a positive relationship between gender ratio and a work climate sensitive to women (Izraeli, 1983; Spangler, Gor- don, & Pipkin, 1978), other investigators have found the structural perspective as represented by gender ratio to be inadequate in explaining the salary gender gap. For example, Pfeffer and Davis-Blake (1987) found that the relationship between gender ratio and the salary of college administrators was significant but had limited linearity for both women and men. This limited linear relationship meant that salaries and gender ratio were related in a positive direction only to a certain point. Pfeffer and Davis-Blake concluded that there is "a point at which work becomes defined as women's work and increases in the proportion of women around that point have a much greater effect on wages than changes at other points in the distribution" (p. 21). Consequently, the structural approach may explain part of the gender salary gap for only a certain range of the gender ratio.

A third perspective, the socialist feminist approach, attempts to explain this limited linearity by attributing the gender wage gap to capitalist patriarchy (Hartmann, 1976; Knoppers, 1988; Reskin & Roos, 1987; Sokoloff, 1988). Capitalism is a social arrangement by which those few who own or manage the means of production profit from the labor of many workers. Patriarchy refers to the power relationships that are based on the benefits many men from women's work and sexuality that enables men to control women (Sokoloff, 1988). The capitalist patriarchy approach contends that capitalism requires inequity and a differential labor market and wages to ensure a profit. Patriarchy orders gender relations so that women and their labor are devalued. This devaluation means that women can be paid less, thus satisfying the needs of capitalism. Consequently, the limited linearity in the relationship between gender ratio and salary can be explained by the devalued status of women. As more and more women enter a job or occupation, the capitalist patriarchy approach predicts that a tipping point

Gender and the Salaries of Coaches 351

is reached, a point where salaries decline for both women and men because jobs have lost their status and prestige (Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1987).

Capitalist patriarchy also operates in the sports world (Bray, 1988). First, with respect to patriarchy, the occupation of coaching is gender differentiated in two ways. There are not only female and male coaches but also women's and men's teams. Since hierarchy is a characteristic of patriarchy, we would expect males coaching males and females coaching females to be associated positively and negatively, respectively, with salary. The salaries of men coaching women would be lower than those of men coaching men and higher than those of women coaching women's teams. Second, college sport is also a capitalist institution (Hart- Nibbrig, 1987). Certain sports must produce a profit since many universities re- quire their athletic department to be self-supporting. Coaches of revenue pro- ducing sports such as men's basketball tend to be paid more than those of other sports. We would expect type of sport, in addition to gender of team and of coach, to have a strong impact on the salary of coaches.

In summary, the human capital, structural, and capitalist patriarchal approaches have been used to explain gender differentiated salaries. The purpose of this study was to determine the relative merit of each approach for explaining the salaries of female and male Division I college coaches. Specifically, as Figure 1 indicates, we examined the influence of formal qualifications and job qualifications, gender of team and of coach, and type of sport on the salaries of female and male coaches.

Methodology

This paper draws on data collected as part of a larger study that focused on the work climate and motivation of Division I college coache~.~

Approach Variables Human capital Formal qualifications

Varsity athlete Type of BA institution P.E. major Years of education

Job qualifications Years of experience Winlloss record

Structural Gender ratio

Capitalist Gender of team patriarchy Type of sport

Figure 1 - Explanations of salaries and their related variables.

'See Knoppers, Meyer, Ewing, and Forrest (in press) for an in-depth explanation of methodology.

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p<.05. Three t tests were used to assess gender differences in education, years of experience, and overall widloss record, as shown in Table 1. Men had had significantly more years of education and years of experience than women w.05) . However, there was no significant statistical difference across gender with respect to overall winlloss record (p>.05).

The salaries of female and male coaches across gender ratio are presented in Table 2. While the mean salary for men was consistently higher than that of women, there was also much greater variability around the mean male salary.

Table 3 presents the results of the multiple regression to predict salary for women and men. Most of the variables that had a significant impact on salary were gender differentiated and the amount of variance in salary explained for men (35%) was lower than that for women (46%). A separate RZ was used for each of the three approaches as a rough method for identifying the relative im- portance of each group of predictor variables (Wallace, 1988). Human capital characteristics accounted for 12 % (R= -34) and 24% (R= .49) of the variance in the salaries of male and female coaches, respectively. Variables describing gender of team and type of sport explained 24% (R= .49) of women's and 26%

I

Table 1

Means, Standard Deviations, and t tests for Years of Education and Job Qualifications of Coaches Across Gender

Variable Women (n = 285) Men (n = 577) M SD M SD ta

Yrs. of higher education 5.70 .90 5.89 1.08 1.97* Yrs. of job experience 10.28 5.68 17.08 10.94 8.89*" Winlloss record .57 .16 .62 .38 1.66

Table 2

Means and Standard Deviations of Women and Men's Salaries Across Different Gender Ratios

Women Men Ratio n M SD n M SD

Knoppers, Bedker Meyer, Ewing, and Forrest

Table 3

Standardized Beta Coefficients for Predicting Salary

Total Basketball Non basketball Women Men Women Men Women Men

Variables (285) (577) (66) (97') (219) (480)

Ascribed char. Racea (white)

Formal qualifications Varsity athletea BA institution P.E. majora Yrs. of education

Job qualifications Yrs. of experience Winlloss record

Aspects of the job Sex of team

Coach men Coach women

Type of sport Basketball Baseballlsoftball Golf TracWCC Tennis Volleyball

Gender ratio

R R2

(e) .05 - .08 (el .08 -.23* (e) -.I0 - . I3 (e) .09 - .08 (e) .16 .04

.17* -.03 .16*

.76* * * .60* * * .50***

.57 .36 .25

al =yes, O= no; b ~ o women coached, men's teams; 'All women basketball coaches had been P.E. majors; d ~ l l women basketball coaches coached only women; These coaches did not coach these sports. *p<.05; *p<.Ol; *p<.OOl.

(R= .5 1) of men's salaries. Gender ratio explained .4 % (R = .06) and 2 % (R = .15) of women's and men's salaries, respectively.

The gender of the team had a significant impact on the salaries of male coaches only. Coaching men had a positive (. 11) and near significant impact @= .08) whereas coaching women had a significant negative impact (-. 13) on the salaries of only male coaches @= .05).

The type of sport coached made a difference in the salaries of the coaches in our sample. Coaching basketball not only had a significant positive impact on the salaries of both genders (with a stronger impact for women) but also had the strongest association with salary of all the sports and other variables. The impact of coaching volleyball was positive for both women and men and approached


significance for women (p = -08). Most of the other sports had a nonsignificant impact on salary with the exception of golf and tennis, which were negatively and significantly linked with the salaries of male coaches only.

Since the coefficients for basketball were the largest of all coefficients, the data of basketball coaches may have confounded the results of other coaches. Consequently, we conducted additional multiple regression analyses for the basketball and non basketball coaches. The results are also given in Table 3. Although these still show gender differentiated patterns, the results are more similar for formal qualifications.

Gender ratio had a significant and positive effect on the salaries of male coaches only. Its standardized beta coefficient was the second highest (coaching basketball being the highest) of all the variables regressed on salary for men. In order to test for linearity, we also coded gender ratio as a categorical variable. We had intended to use Kanter's (1977) four categories of gender ratio, but since less than 1 % of the coaches fell into the first category where gender ratio was less than .15, we combined that category with the second. Specifically, the categories used in this analysis were (a) .00-.39 (low), (b) -40-.49 (balanced), and (c) .60 and greater (high). The -00-.39 category was the omitted dummy variable in the regression analysis. To further explore nonlinearities, we conducted a second analysis using a more finely divided set of categories with inter- val size of . 10 (Pfeffer & Davis-Blake, 1987). The resulting regression coefficients for the test of nonlinear effects of gender ratio using the 3 and the 10 categories are presented in Table 4. The lowest ratio categories (.00-. 39 and .00- .09) were the omitted dummy variables in Analyses 1 and 2, respectively. Only the dummy

Table 4

Coefficients Based on Gender Ratio Dummy Variables for Predicting Salary

Analyses Women (n = 285) Men (n = 577)

Analysis 1 .40-.59 .60 + Analysis 2 .lo-.19 .20-.29 .30-.39 .40-.49 .50-.59 .60-.69 .70-.79 .80-.89 .90-.99

R RZ


variable coefficients are presented because the coefficients of the other variables, as well as the total amount of explained variance, remain unchanged.

The size of the coefficients for the three gender ratio categories seemed to indicate a linear effect, that is, salaries for males increased positively with an increase in gender ratio. The size and magnitude of the coefficients in the second analysis seemed to indicate there were two linear effects, both of which were limited. The tipping point occurred where the gender ratio was equal to or greater than .50. A follow-up one-way ANOVA for male coaches, in which salary was the dependent variable and gender ratio was the independent variable, was significant, F(2,574)= 13, p= .001. The post hoc Scheff6 test indicated that males who coached at institutions where the gender ratio was high had significantly higher salaries than males elsewhere in other gender ratio categories.

To examine whether gender ratio conflated with gender, sport, and sex of team, we conducted two ANOVAs, one for basketball coaches and the other for all the remaining coaches. Because we were interested in the ordering of salary along gender and proportion, we compared the six groups created by these two variables across salary for basketball and for non basketball coaches. In the basketball analyses the ANOVA was significant, F(5,157) =5.19, p<.001. A post hoc Scheffk test indicated that the salaries of male basketball coaches at institutions with a high gender ratio were significantly higher than those of women at similar institutions and those at universities where the ratio was balanced. The mean salaries are given in Table 5 and indicate that the women working under conditions in which the gender ratio is balanced receive the lowest salary of all basketball coaches. Although a similar one-way ANOVA for non basketball coaches was also significant, F(5,693) =2.76, p<.05, the post hoc Scheffk indicated that none of the group means were significantly different from each other.

Table 5

Means and Standard Deviations for Salary Based on Type of Sport, Gender of Coach, and Gender Ratio

Gender Women Men ratio M SO n M SO n

Basketball Low 31,750 7,900 23 33,100 11,150 30 Bal. 30,450 6,150 22 34,250 1 1,161 27 High 28,100 6,900 21 47,300 15,000 40

Non basketball Low 18,700 9,350 65 21,150 11,400 205 Bal. 20,500 8,500 71 21,160 11,423 110 High 24,600 1,381 83 28,800 12,351 165


Discussion

Overall, although there were several similarities between the determinants of the salaries of women and men, the size of the standardized beta coefficients indicated that the impact of experience, widloss record, and coaching basketball was greater on the salaries of women than of men. Other variables that had a significant impact on salary varied by gender. We will consider the results in light of the human capital (qualifications), structural (group composition), and socialist feminist (capitalist patriarchy) approaches.

If the human capitalist approach were to explain salary, then the coefficients associated with formal and job qualifications for each gender should have been similar in magnitude and direction and larger than other coefficients. The formal qualifications that had a significant impact on salary were gender differentiated in both sign and magnitude and were primarily associated with the salaries of non basketball coaches. Job qualifications were gender differentiated in the magnitude of the coefficients only. Interestingly, the relative weight attached to years of experience and to widloss record was similar within gender. The exception to this was the group of female basketball coaches for whom only experience was significant, and to a greater degree than it was for males.

The relatively low amount of variance explained by formal qualifications indicated that possibly the human capital characteristics needed for coaching jobs are not well defined. This vagueness may be especially problematic to women and minorities when they wish to enter the coaching ranks. Their salaries, especially for basketball coaches, may be more a function of those doing the hiring than of well-established universal human capital characteristics. This lack of unifor- mity in career preparation criteria may mean that the current trend toward con- ducting coaching clinics for women to enhance their formal qualifications may not significantly affect their salaries.

Together the human capital characteristics explained 24% and 12 % of the variancein the salaries of women and men, respectively, seemingly indicating that monetary rewards were assigned on gender differentiated standards. Possibly athletic directors were more likely to use such qualifications for determining the salaries of women than those of men, resulting in two sets of standards, which may indicate that gender or other factors besides human capital characteristics played a part in salary determination. It seems that as a result it would be easier for athletic directors to keep women out of coaching or keep their salaries low by applying criteria that have surface legitimacy when one discusses the hiring/ rewarding of women. Perhaps since the recent focus and concern of some in the sports world has been on the qualifications, or lack of them, of female coaches, little attention has been focused on the aualifications of male coaches. Few if any researchers have examined the hum& capital of male coaches, whereas the qualifications of female coaches have been the subject of debate (Acosta & Carpenter, 1988). These discussions may facilitate the gender differentiated employment of human capital characteristics in determining salary. In addition, these results indicate that the human capital approach to explain the gender wage gap is inadequate since it does not explain why human capital wage determinants

gender differentiated.


The structural model requires an examination of group composition, that is, gender ratio, and assumes that in male dominated occupations it has a positive relationship with salary of women. The results of this study indicated, however, that gender ratio had little impact on the salary of women and thus the structural approach did little to explain their lower salaries.

The structural perspective may have been inadequate in explaining salary differences because this approach implies gender neutrality of structure. It assumes that work behavior and salaries are shaped by an individual's place in an organization rather than by gender per se. Thus a gender balanced work force would be associated with a positive work climate for both women and men. However, this gender neutrality does not always occur, as a more balanced gender ratio has been associated with an increase in sex segregation of jobs within an occupation and an increase in gender boundaries (Bielby & Baron, 1987; Reskin, 1988; Zimmer, 1988). Similarly, our results indicated that as structure (i.e., group composition) changed, so did the salaries of male coaches only. Possibly the structural approach is more adequate in explaining other gender differentiated factors than salaries that exist in jobs and occupations. Although gender ratio was significantly associated with higher salaries for some men, that result can best be understood in light of the socialist feminist approach and its contention that capitalist patriarchy continually reconstructs gender relations.

The gender related differences in salary may be reflective of such recon- struction in sport. The resistance to the entry of females into the male sports world has been well documented (e.g., Boutilier & SanGiovanni, 1983; Messner, 1988). Factors such as Title M and the feminist movement as well as the presence and visibility of many outstanding female athletes may have lowered this gender bound- ary. This decreased resistance may have led to the new construction of a more embedded ideological hegemony about gender with respect to leadership in sport.

Since athletic directors hire coaches, they act as gatekeepers to the occupation of coaching. The lack of well-established universal human capital characteristics for entry into a coaching career means that athletic directors can reconstitute the labor force as they wish by in part controlling the allocation of rewards (Reskin, 1988; Stewart, 1982). They can shift gender boundaries by hiring few women and many men or by hiring many women and fewer men. When the gender ratio is low, men's salaries are usudly high since it is deemed that the male presence gives the job prestige (Bielby & Baron, 1987; Hartmann, 1976). In high gender ratio conditions, men must be paid more than women to prevent the job from losing prestige. Both of these characteristics were depicted in our results. In addition, the coaching of women had a significant negative impact on the salaries of men. Possibly within the occupation, then, salary demarcation and job sex segregation boundaries are strengthened. In institutions where at least half of the coaches of women's teams were women, the prestige attached to coaching as a male occupation is enhanced by the higher salaries paid to males who coach men. This gender differentiation in salary can be explained by those in power using seemingly gender neutral reasons, with logic grounded in the nature of the capital- istic system that we will discuss further on.

It is important to note that turnover is usually greatest in jobs with the lowest salaries and that women are usually hired for those types of jobs (Hart- man, 1976; Reskin, 1988). If, as our results indicate, the lowest paid coaching jobs are those held by women, then the possibility for a high turnover rate exists. This high turnover rate would then help explain the significantly more years of


coaching experience of the male coaches, and would also help keep coaching as a high status and well-rewarded occupation for men.

Hierarchy within gender is also a feature of patriarchy (Hartrnann, 1976; Sokoloff, 1988). The negative impact on the salary of men who coached women may have been an indication that both the gender of the coach and that of the team were important in determining one's salary. Coaching males seemed to have a more positive impact on salary than coaching females. In addition, the fact that no women in our sample coached only men's teams and 13 coached both women and men, whereas 24 % (n = 135) and 23 % (n = 129) of the men coached women only or both women and men, respectively, seemed to indicate that gatekeeping is more rigorous for women where men's teams are concerned. If such gender boundaries are rigid, then gender related salary parity will be difficult to achieve.

College sport not only orders gender, however, but also operates within a capitalist system. Type of sport was also a significant on-the-job determinant of salary. The size, significance, and sign of the standardized beta coefficients for basketball for both genders seem to indicate that the economic system within which college sport operates may have intersected with its patriarchal nature. Capital- ism brings about a distinction between revenue and nonrevenue sport. This distinction seems to have been reflected in higher salaries for basketball coaches regardless of gender and the fact that type of sport explained a similar percent of variance (24% and 26%) for women and men, respectively. The results of the regression analyses also indicated that salary determinants varied not only by gender but also by sport. Again, the lack of consistency of well-established formal career preparation may allow those doing the hiring to establish salaries of first-year basketball coaches at will.

In summary then, these data showed strongest support for the capitalist patriarchal explanation for gender differentiated salaries of coaches. This theoretical best fit does not mean that the other two approaches had no part in explaining salary. Instead, the three seemed to work in combination and the nature of that combination seemed to vary by and within gender and sport. The fact that this mix is so varied, however, did seem to indicate that approaches to bring about equitable salaries should begin from the standpoint of capitalist patriarchy and by asking questions about who sets the salaries and by establishing proce- dures for determining them. Both athletic directors and male coaches, especially those who coach men's teams, have a large stake in maintaining the status quo. If, as our results indicated, the lowest paid coaching jobs are those held by women, then the possibility for a high turnover rate exists.

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Acknowledgment

This study was supported by a grant from the National Collegiate Athletic Associa- tion. Portions of this paper were presented at the annual conference of the North Ameri- can Society for the Sociology of Sport, Cincinnati, Ohio, November 9-13, 1988.

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