Initiative on the Status of
Women in the UW System

Initiative on the Status of
Women at UW-Green Bay

Appendix IV

Balancing Work and Personal Life:
Assessing the Climate at UW-Green Bay in Fall 2000

During fall of 2000, the Balancing Work and Personal Life Work Team of the Equality for Women Project at UW-Green Bay surveyed University employees about the quality of their work life on campus. Responses are analyzed by sex and employment category - faculty, academic staff, and classified staff.* Employees submitted responses online or on paper. The survey was not anonymous, allowing follow-up contact with non-respondents. Several follow-up contacts were made to insure the highest response rate possible. By the end of data collection, 78% of 571 employees responded to the invitation to complete the survey: 71% chose to participate and 7% chose not to participate. The remaining 22% did not respond at all.

Response Biases

When broken down by employment category and sex, participation rates ranged from a high of 90% for women in the classified staff to a low of 55% for male faculty (see Table 1). Male participation rates lagged behind female rates in every category. Additional analyses of response patterns revealed that participation did not vary according to age or year hired, but that responses by minorities lagged behind white counterparts in all groups. Responses were weighted by sex, employment category and minority status (see attachment).

Faculty, academic staff, lecturers, classified staff and others were invited to participate.  Adjuncts, ad hocs and instructors from Outreach and Extension were not surveyed at this time.  Lecturers have been combined with faculty and others have been combined with academic staff.  The employment category of “other” contains employees who serve at the discretion of the chancellor or provost, and includes many members of the athletic’s staff.

Survey Participants' Tenure at UW-Green Bay

People who have worked at UW-Green Bay for a long time have had more opportunities to experience a range of employment experiences. They may also have had greater confidence responding openly to a survey about employment conditions. Tenure at the University varies significantly between men and women and between the three employment groups (see Table 2).

Overall, male respondents have worked here an average of eleven years and female respondents have worked here an average of eight years. The academic staff is the youngest group of employees, with an average tenure here of seven years, compared to ten years for the classified staff and eleven years for the faculty. The smallest difference between the sexes is between men and women in the academic staff, where male respondents have worked here an average of two years longer than female respondents have. The gap in the classified staff is three years, but in that group, women have been here longer than men have.

Figure 1. Years at UW-Green Bay

The average male faculty respondent has worked here for fifteen years, almost three times as long as the female faculty average of six years (see Figure 1). It is important to consider these differences in tenure at the University when evaluating participants' responses to various survey items.

Back to Full Report | Next

Contact Us (Request Information)
University of Wisconsin - Green Bay / 2420 Nicolet Drive / Green Bay, Wisconsin 54311-7001
Telephone: 920.465.2000 | Webmaster: cs_www@uwgb.edu
© 2002, 2003 All rights reserved