Calls and Compensation

This set of figures address clergy experience relative to the setting in which they serve and the material compensation they receive. Figures 8, 9, 10, and 11 all come from the Forty-fifth Anniversary Study, but draw upon different data sets so the years vary.

Figure 7 shows that in 1994 approximately the same percentage of women and men clergy served in congregational settings. Women were slightly more likely to have specialized calls issued by synod councils or the church council. More significantly women were twice as likely as men to be on leave from call.

Figure 8 suggests that in 2015 gender and race had some significance relative to rate of compensation. However the ELCA Office for Evaluation and Research found that date of ordination was a better predictor.

Figure 9 shows that women clergy made between 86% and 90% of what their male colleagues did in 2014. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that full-time women workers’ median earnings were 83% of men that year.

Figure 10 shows that women were more likely than men to be in small congregations with one hundred or fewer members and as likely as men to be in congregations with 500 or more members; but in large congregations women were more likely to be associates or assistants.

Figure 11 shows that women clergy were nearly twice as likely as men in 2016 to have part-time calls.