Exploring the gender wage gap in North American forestry

This dissertation investigates gender-based wage disparities in the public forestry workforce across Washington, Idaho, and Montana, drawing on state government payroll data. While existing literature has extensively examined gender wage gaps in corporate and service industries, less is known about compensation equity in male-dominated, public-sector fields such as forestry. This study aims to address this gap by analyzing how gender, state, and occupational hierarchy interact to influence salary outcomes among forestry employees. A 2 × 3 × 4 factorial ANOVA was conducted to examine the main and interaction effects of gender (male, female), state (WA, ID, MT), and job level (Entry, Mid, Senior, Manager) on annual salaries. Job titles were standardized and categorized into four hierarchical job levels based on industry norms. The analysis revealed statistically significant main effects for state and job level, as well as interaction effects between gender and job level, and a significant three-way interaction among state, gender, and job level. Gender-based wage disparities were most pronounced in entry- and mid-level roles, where men earned significantly more than women, particularly in Washington and Montana. At the senior and managerial levels, these differences diminished and were not always statistically significant, suggesting that wage gaps are more severe at lower occupational tiers. The findings are interpreted using the Human Capital Model, which attributes wage differences to education and experience; the Labor Market Discrimination theory, which addresses structural inequities; and Occupational Segregation theory, which explains gender clustering in job types. Even after accounting for job level, substantial unexplained wage differences remain, underscoring the presence of systemic inequality and the need for additional factors such as age, education, experience and tenure in gender wage gap studies.