The paper, “Gender Pay Gaps in U.S. Federal Science Agencies: An Organizational Approach,” was published in the September edition of the American Journal of Sociology.

Husbands Fealing, who is professor of public policy and dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, and her fellow researchers found that pay gaps at agencies focused on traditionally masculine fields such as engineering and physical sciences were largely the result of men being paid more than women for the same jobs. At more gender-neutral agencies, those focused on life sciences and interdisciplinary sciences, the differences were due to agencies systematically hiring more women than men for low-paying jobs, according to the researchers.

David Brady, chair of the ASA Section on Inequality, Poverty, and Mobility, announced the award on Twitter.

“Congratulations to these authors on a terrific piece!” he tweeted. “The competition was very tough as 28 excellent articles were nominated. Great work!”

Laurel Smith-Doerr of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst was lead author on the paper. Co-authors were Sharla Alegria of the University of Toronto; Husbands Fealing; Donald Tomaskovic-Devey of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Debra Fitzpatrick of the University of Minnesota.

At the time of the article’s publication, Husbands Fealing was chair of the School of Public Policy.