Communications of the ACM
Research Updates Gender Pay Gap Beliefs
Both men and women are negotiating more, but the increase is much greater for women than men.
Credit: Adobe Stock
Research by UC Berkeley Haas Professor Laura Kray shows the belief that women don't ask for higher pay is outdated and may be hurting pay equity efforts. Professional women now report negotiating their salaries more often than men, but they get turned down more often, according to research published in the Academy of Management Discoveries.
"Continuing to put the blame on women for not negotiating away the gender pay gap does double damage, perpetuating gender stereotypes and weakening efforts to fight them," Kray says.
Kray and co-authors — Associate Professor Jessica Kennedy of Vanderbilt University, and Haas post-doctoral scholar Margaret Lee — analyzed a survey of students graduating from a top MBA program between 2015 to 2019 and found that significantly more women than men reported negotiating their job offers — 54% versus 44%.
Their analysis confirmed that people who ask for higher pay are indeed more likely to get higher pay than those who don't ask. "People should be encouraged to ask," they write. Men are more likely to receive better pay without asking for it, they found.
Overall, they found that the women earned 22% less than the men.
University of California Berkeley Haas
View Full Article
No entries found