In Tech, Wage Gender Gap Worsens For Women Over Time, and It's Worst For Black Women (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch report: According to a new study involving more than 120,000 job offers transacted on Hired, a jobs marketplace for tech workers, the average female candidate is still making less than her male peers for the same work, and sometimes far less. Hired's data shows that 63 percent of the time women receive lower salary offers than men for the same job at the same company, with white women offered 4 percent less on average, and women more broadly offered up to 50 percent less in the most extreme examples. Along the same vein, for one out of every 10 job openings that Hired analyzed, companies offered white men salaries that were at least 20 percent higher than those offered to women. According to the American Association of University Women, it might take another 136 years for the pay gap to disappear entirely. Perhaps more illuminating in this new report is what happens to women's salaries over time, and who is receiving the lowest pay of all for the same jobs at the same companies: Latina and black women. [...] It found that white women with four years or less of experience actually ask for more money than their male counterparts -- possibly because they're armed with information about what the market is paying for more entry-level jobs. A gap in the other direction begins to appear in candidates with six or more years of experience, however, with white women in tech both asking for less than their white male counterparts and receiving it. Indeed, over time and across the country, white women in tech earn an average of .90 cents for every dollar made by their male peers for the same work.

Comments

The takeaway

[grasshoppa]

So women ask for less...and they get it.

Newsflash; that isn't discrimination. That's not sexism. That's individuals undervaluing they're worth, and not anyone's fault but the person that does it.

Re:The takeaway

[JoeMerchant]

Did the analysis take into account time off for childbirth and care?

If they say they did, did they do it correctly?

Re:The takeaway

[chihowa]

But you're right about the short-changing themselves. I was talking with a female colleague who holds a PhD about getting hired, and she said "well, our wages are fixed anyway. They said you have this degree and x years of experience so that's the salary". We work in the private sector, so no, our wages aren't "fixed". You can definitely discuss your salary. You just accepted the first offer they gave you, instead of bargaining. They would have at least offered you a stock-plan if you didn't agree right away.

I've heard this in academia, too, and they're not really fixed here either. It's just a shitty and abusive negotiation tactic that is used to try to cut the salary negotiation short and it often works. Women are apparently less likely to call the bluff and press for what they think they're worth.

Re:The takeaway

[swillden]

So women ask for less...and they get it.

Newsflash; that isn't discrimination. That's not sexism. That's individuals undervaluing they're worth, and not anyone's fault but the person that does it.

So... women do worse in a system designed decades ago when there were no women in the professional workforce. That is, a system designed around male behavioral norms. Is anyone surprised by that?

The HR organization in my employer did an analysis a few years ago and found that while female engineers and male engineers of the same rank on the career ladder got paid the same (because the HR organization had previously worked hard to make it so), female engineers tended to be of lower rank. Looking more closely, they found that this was mostly caused by the fact that women nominated themselves for promotion at a lower rate. Promotion in my company is initiated by the employee seeking promotion, not by management. Promotion success rates for those who applied were equal or slightly higher for women, as were subsequent job performance ratings. In a followup study they interviewed randomly-selected high-performing engineers of both genders and found that the women were less assertive in all sorts of ways that seem clearly related to societal gender stereotypes -- and remember that this was a set of women working in a male-dominated field, and at the highest level of that field, so they were no shrinking violets.

The HR team attempted to counter this problem with a campaign to both encourage female engineers directly and -- what turned out to be more important -- to educate their managers to be more sensitive to the fact that women are often less assertive, and to actively counter that by regularly encouraging high-performing women to seek promotion. Within a year of initiating this program, they found that promotion application rates had equalized across the genders, with no effect on promotion success rates or subsequent job performance. In addition, they found that promotion application rates for both genders had risen (though women rose more). Subsequent analysis attributed that to managers also putting more effort into encouraging high-performing but non-assertive men.

The promo self-nomination process was designed with typical high-performing male behavioral patterns in mind, which turn out to be slightly different than typical high-performing female behavioral patterns. Nature or nurture, I don't know and don't care. The point is that the system was designed for men and that made it difficult for women to keep up. A slight alteration of the system fixed the problem and women are no longer at a disadvantage (not in that area, at least).

Large statistical basis & perfomance

[supercell]

Since compensation in the private sector is more or less based on performance and since we are talking large statistical samples, might it be that males generally excel at IT functions?

Also for career paths in general, on a large statistical basis, women are much more likely to leave the work for some period of time to raise children or in some cases they marry have a partner that allows them to not work or work part time. This is highly disruptive to their career growth and their compensation. This I suspect, is the majority or any pay discrepancy between males an females on a large statistical scale.

Otherwise, I think the whole this is a political wedge to gain votes. I am a business owner and I suspect all business owners are going to hire the lowest cost, yet most productive employees they can. If women were willing to work for less and were such great deals, all companies would hire women exclusively. This argument falls flat.

Re:Hire only women and minorities!

[religionofpeas]

For some reason, corporations prefer to hire expensive white men, rather than cheap black women.

Perhaps its the interview process?

[jediborg]

This article http://blog.interviewing.io/we... discusses an interesting experiment where males and females had their voices masked for technical interviews so they could analyze the differences in how women perform while controlling for gender discrimination. Some fascinating results that show how women react differently to tech interviews than men, possibly resulting in them getting less employment offers and/or lower salary. I wonder how much this effect can be attributed to the results mentioned in this slashdot article. Like most problems with women's performance/success compared to men, this is mostly a cultural issue. There are things we can all do to pitch in and improve the situation but its not really something the government can legislate away.

On the other hand, i wouldn't be surprised to find the tech industry is actually more discriminating toward women than other industries, given that we already know there is rampant agism (reluctance to hire older programmers) and a culture that encourages workers to forgo family and other commitments in favor of longer hours and 'crunch time'

Re:So what if there is a gap?

[chipschap]

The feminist movement has made it abundantly clear that women are competent and capable of success, and that they do not need men to provide for them or protect them.

I certainly believe that women are competent and able to take care of themselves. But once, when I posted something about men needing to stand up for what's right and not sit idly by, I was ripped up by a feminist who thought such a statement was sexist. Kind of leaves me not knowing what to do. Was I supposed to say: Oh, women are being abused and mistreated, but so what, they can handle it?

I guess the idea that we should all stand together for what's right was not acceptable.

Women Don't Ask!

[Frobnicator]

So women ask for less...and they get it. Newsflash: that isn't discrimination. That's not sexism. That's individuals undervaluing they're worth, and not anyone's fault but the person that does it.

That was my thought going in. I've read quite a few books and research on the topic because I don't want to be the one who perpetuates the gap. But over the years I've learned a critical truth: Women Don't Ask! (There's even a book by that title.)

The data in the article is quite clear, and the article states it outright: "69% of the time women ask for less money than men". 70% of these women are making less than men because they didn't ask to make the same wages. While it happens more frequently with women, sometimes it happens with men, too. The HR person ask "What is your requested pay?" and the candidate says a low number. They HR drone will smile, tell the applicant they can arrange to use that number, and the person gets the wages they requested.

Lots of books (including the one Women Don't Ask mentioned above) discuss reasons behind it, but for all the reasons the fact is that it happens. Women ask for less money. Over a full career, men ask for more money roughly four times as often as women. The amounts they ask for are usually larger. Men ask for raises, men ask for promotions, men find different jobs for money, and they do all of them far more often than women. However, women are much more likely to talk about needing money with their peers, to talk about financial difficulty with their coworkers, and yet not actually ask for more money, assuming that somehow the managers will notice their efforts and their needs without requests being made.

In one set of studies -- graduating students at Carnegie Mellon, 57% of the males negotiated salaries, only 7% of the females negotiated salaries. In their sampling, the rate that was negotiated was almost exactly the amount of the wage gap. Those who negotiated their pay were making the higher rate. Those who accepted the initial offer without negotiation were making the lower rate.

When it comes to annual performance reviews, there is a similar striking difference. Many of the men and a few of the women fill their performance review with every positive thing they have done, presented in the best light. Some are 10 or even 20 pages filled with accomplishments, stating they are worthy of a large raise, a bonus, and a promotion. Most of the women and a few of the men have very short performance reviews, either minimally mentioning that they helped the team, or listing all the ways they needed to improve over the year. Many of the latter type don't even ask for a COLA raise, effectively asking that they take a relative reduction in pay.

From the books and studies I've read about it, the fact that women don't ask accounts for nearly all the wage gap. Some of it is real, some if it is actual discrimination, but the vast majority of it is women sabotaging themselves before the wage discussion even begins.

Re:A woman and I were paid the same

[Frobnicator]

There are many books on that, like "Women Don't Ask" and "Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office", where economists and business researches study why it happens. Several books on the topic propose that nearly all of the gender gap comes from women not asking for wages or negotiating for themselves.

Simply, men ask for bonuses, promotions, and raises about 4x more than women do. Men ask for more with each request, about 2x more than women do.

(Obviously there are exceptions to the groups. Some men don't ask, and some women do ask, but overall the trends are quite clear.)

Men are more likely to negotiate their wages at hire, nearly 8x more likely to negotiate. Some women will negotiate, but few do. Of those who do negotiate, most women will ask for less; perhaps for one job a man may initially ask for $10,000 more, the fewer women who ask for the same role are more likely to start at $6,000 or $4,000 or less. Men are more likely to ask for raises and promotions out of cycle, roughly 6x more likely to ask for a raise or bonus or promotion after completing an assignment or project. It is quite common for men to quietly approach their boss with: "I finished the project, I'd like a raise", or "That contract is complete, I'd like a bonus", or "I just landed this deal for the company worth $x, I'd like a bonus for that." Women almost never do that. (The stats come from several studies in the books mentioned above.)

When performance reviews come around, men usually write more self-praise, take credit for accomplishments, and ask firmly for a large raise and bonus; women tend to deflect praise to the team and ask for minimal rewards, often even asking less than COLA (effectively taking a pay cut). In reviews, I've seen that women are also more likely to list their faults and problems and areas for improvement instead of listing their accomplishments.

Men usually take an active role in talking with their bosses to get the raises and promotions and bonuses. Women will often talk to their peers, particularly to their female co-workers, but will usually assume that their actions speak for themselves and not mention it to the boss. Of course, the boss sees a team where everything is working well, hears no complaints, hears no requests for more money and promotions, and lets the team carry on.

The various authors point out that it isn't due to a lack of negotiating skill, it applies even to fields in marketing and law where persuasive negotiation is critical and the women are well-trained, yet for many reasons women tend not to negotiate on their own behalf.