Women tend to ask for lower salaries than men do. So, what if we gave women the information on average pay for the position? Wouldn’t that solve the problem?
You’d think it would, and I’ve long advocated for salary openness. Knowing what the average was for the position would certainly help you craft a salary, but an experiment at Hired, said it made the gap even wider.
Jessica Kirkpatrick, Hired’s lead data scientist, believed as I did, that once presented with the proper information, women and men would ask for similar salaries. So, she set up an experiment where candidates were presented with the average salaries of people with similar skills. There was also a control group. Here’s what happened, according to Quartz:
To keep reading, click here: Women Ask for Lower Salaries. It’s Hard to Fix.
I was glad to see that the trend for asking for the higher salary is growing in younger women entering the workforce. I feel it is probably because of their mother’s influence of having been a working mother with or without the support of male parent in household. The earlier generations of working women had to compromise to maintain jobs even when doing so- called male only jobs. What has been forgotten over time is that as people get more education, no job is limited to what sex the person is, but rather how well the person can do the job, including those that require physical strength. Unfortunately we still have the prejudice view of women’s place is to not need a job because she can be better supported by the male.
Here’s a little secret…
In many cases assuming the salary budget is flexible and not fixed, a company will be influenced by the salary requirement and then try to pay a little as they think they can get away with near that number – REGARDLESS of gender.
The old saying of “Don’t sell yourself short” is so very true.
I’m a hiring manager in tech of many years and approve this message.