Gender pay gap among Episcopal clergy shrinking but persistent

In 2001, when the Church Pension Group first started publishing differences in average compensation between male and female full-time Episcopal clergy, men earned 18 percent more than women. Nearly 20 years later, according to the most recent CPG report, the gap in median compensation between male and female clergy is 13.5 percent.

The primary factor in the lingering clergy gender pay gap is the shortage of women in higher-paying senior positions, according to both the data and the observations of diocesan leaders.

“If you look at it from a simple mathematical standpoint,” said Mary Brennan Thorpe, canon to the ordinary in the Diocese of Virginia, “the biggest lifter of average compensation, the fastest way to get there, would be for female clergy to be called to large churches, to be rectors of large churches, which compensate more highly. And yet, there’s still some resistance on the part of some parishes.”