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One of the hottest topics and biggest problems in gender equality right now is the pay gap between men and women. While more women are heading into the career field and taking higher positions, they’re still only making 75-80 cents on the man’s dollar – so what’s up with that? There have been many theories on the subject, ranging from sexism in the workplace to women’s unwillingness to negotiate salaries, but the research on the subject has been lacking – until now. Glassdoor conducted a study to find out what exactly the problem is and came up with some interesting findings.
Through a study conducted in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, and France, Glassdoor was able to get a pretty good grasp on what’s going on. In these five countries, Glassdoor found that men in the U.S. make an average of 24.1% more than their female counterparts, which completely explains why I can’t afford to get bottomless mimosas at brunch anymore. However, this doesn’t account for differing job titles, companies, and regions, among several other factors. Once these contributing factors are taken into account, the pay gap for men and women in similar positions shrinks exponentially – it’s really only 5.4%, meaning women are making 94.6 cents on the man’s dollar.
This still does open up a new question for the pay gap – while it seems women in similar positions are getting closer to making the same salaries as their male counterparts, why does it seem that women aren’t in as many higher-paying positions? According to the study, in all five countries, men and women are commonly sorted into different positions and industries, which have varying levels of pay. For example, Glassdoor found that while women only make up 26% of CEO positions with high pay, they fill 71% of cashier positions.
So why does this happen? It has less to do with levels of education, the study found, and more to do with societal pressure. Growing up in a patriarchal society encourages boys from a young age to pursue business and science, teaching them that climbing up the career ladder is their calling in life. Meanwhile, girls grow up with the understanding that raising a family will be their primary responsibility, so many choose majors that lead to lower-paying jobs, knowing that this may not be a career that they keep once children come along.
To help solve this pay gap, Glassdoor is advocating for greater transparency in salaries. This is something I’m completely behind – if you’ve ever interviewed for a job, you probably experienced the slight panic that comes behind receiving an offer. Should I negotiate for a higher salary? If so, what reasons should I give? Am I actually qualified to make more than what HR is suggesting? What do other people in my field even make, anyway? Thankfully, Glassdoor might be able to help you with that through their anonymously-published salaries. When reviewing your next job offer, head over to their website and find out what other people at your company, your position, or your region are making, and you just might sound intelligent enough to negotiate your next salary. Get ready, bottomless mimosas – I’m coming back for you..
[via Glassdoor]
Image via Shutterstock
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Steph W.
Steph W. is a new Master's degree graduate with an intern's salary and six-figure taste. She realizes her expectations far exceed reality, so she spends her days pinning away Loubs she pretends are in her physical closet instead of her virtual one. Her hobbies include attempting to trapping her boyfriend into marriage before he finds out how insane she is and pretending that Black Box wine tastes as good as the kind she could afford when she was gainfully employed. Send her tips for getting out of student debt at recruitchairtsm@gmail.com
@therecruitchair
They still didn’t control for field of study which is a huge contributing factor. Over 75% of STEM degrees are going to men right now, and fields like women’s studies and sociology have over 70% female graduates. It also doesn’t account for the (scientifically verified) fact that women on average are less likely to negotiate for pay raises as much as men. Those two factors would probably explain most of the remaining 5%.
My favorite question, though, when talking about the so-called pay gap, is that if women are still, after all of this, getting paid less for doing the same job with the same education and experience level and qualifications, why haven’t a lot of smart CEO’s just started hiring all women? They demand less salary in the market, right? By 20-25% say the outraged class! There are plenty of CEO’s that would love to save that kind of money on payroll expenses and there are more than enough qualified women in the workforce. The answer boils down to the fact that they don’t do it because the pay gap is largely not there when everything is controlled for.
Your post is filled with logic, a foreign concept to so many who believe in the supposed “wage gap.” Before you know it, they’ll be branding your argument as “hate speech.”
You misogynist, racist pig. Everyone knows that facts I don’t agree with constitute hate speech.
Of course, because facts that you don’t agree with are merely hateful opinions.
This has me feeling very marginalized. I need my safe space.
What are the 10 cities where the pay gap is the largest for Millenials?
This isn’t news. These studies have been out there, despite democrats, including Obama, stating that the wage gap was .77 cents on the dollar.
CONSAD conducted a study back in 2009 on the request of the Department of Labor. The study stated that the “raw wage gap should not be used as the basis to justify corrective action. Indeed, there may be nothing to correct. The differences in raw wages may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices being made by both male and female workers.”
The Recruitment Chair can’t be bothered to do anything but repost lists, but maybe she can watch a video.
My only problem with Glassdoor is that it never shows the salaries of the jobs I actually want like being rich or being a kingpin of a massive drug operation.
Or Batman
I think being Batman actually costs money, but there are certain…upsides.
True. The only upside now is that if my desk job keeps steering me into existential oblivion, I’ll be able to lose my mind and become The Joker for free
I laughed out loud at this while sitting at my desk. You should consider stand-up.
This is not new news. That 77 cents study everyone loves to cite was done by the American Association of University Women. So real nice and unbiased is what I’m saying. Sure, making 94 cents on the dollar still isn’t fair but women aren’t being pushed below the poverty line because of it. And why the hell is it my problem that you settled on cashier or some humanities major but then won’t negotiate for your worth.
The 77 cents is not even a study. It’s just a baseline statistic used in the wrong way.
Don’t come at me with “women are pushed in to other things”. Whatever happened to personal responsibility? Blaming society for choosing a low paying field / negotiating salary poorly doesn’t help women
Women don’t take higher paying positions because that’s just more time out of the kitchen
Damn! Good one bud.
Then why has every woman I’ve dated in DC not know how to cook?
They don’t take higher paying positions because they don’t really want to work to begin with (who does?). They’ve just fallen hard for the corpmedia lie that it’s “cool” and “empowering” to be a wage slave so they can make more money to buy useless shit while delaying or completely foregoing anything that actually makes life worth living, like marriage, having kids, spending time with friends/family, etc. Carry on serfs, carry on.
Not true, I take pride in my ability to pull in a bigger pay check than most men in my company AND bring in baked goods every Friday for the guys in my company.
I can’t exactly relate to your “growing up in a patriarchal society” sentiment. I came from personal accountability and hard work- that will get you farther in your career rather than finding a scapegoat in societal pressure.
Yup. Sorry lady. Imma jump on the bandwagon with everyone else and say that someone who works in the political arena, we’ve known that study was flawed LOOOONG before Glassdoor ever got around to it. Like, credible institutions actually disproved that study years ago. Grandex is a great & flexible company but I still they they expect their staff to do basic research before they write and post articles…
This is not news