Corporations Compassion Culture: Leading Your Business Toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion by Keesa C. Schreane

Author:Keesa C. Schreane [Schreane, Keesa C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Business & Economics, Human Resources & Personnel Management, Management, Leadership
ISBN: 9781119780595
Google: kc0cEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2021-02-10T00:04:08.456522+00:00

Another factor that may partly explain the gender pay gap is the overrepresentation of women within lower-paying occupations. Across racial and ethnic lines, women account for larger percentages of the low-wage and lowest-wage workforce than their male counterparts. Despite making up less than half of all workers, women are nearly 60% of the workers in low-wage occupations, typically paying less than $11 per hour.5 Of the lowest-wage jobs paying less than $10 per hour, women account for nearly 70% of the workers.

Although some point to educational discrepancies between men and women in their attempts to explain these differences, when educational attainments are taken into consideration, gender pay discrepancies still persist. Generally, workers with a bachelor's degree earn about double the pay of their coworkers without a college education. Yet, the discrepancy between men and women's earnings widens as women attain more education. Among workers with a bachelor's degree, women earn 74 cents for every dollar that their male counterparts make. This is less than the 78 cents that women without college degrees receive for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.6

Salary negotiation also plays a role in pay disparity between the genders. Linda Babcock, the author of Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, states that executives who negotiate their first salaries out of college can earn upwards of $500,000 more over their working lives than those who did not.7 Her research also found that men who negotiated their initial salaries were able to raise those salaries by an average of 7.4%.

Numerous theories attempt to explain why women are less likely to negotiate compensation. According to Babcock, women are looked on negatively when they seek to negotiate. They may be labeled as “overly aggressive” or a “nag.” Women may feel apprehensive about these perceptions, so they choose not to question the offered salary. According to Katie Donovan, founder of Equal Pay negotiations, many companies set aside funds in anticipation of new hires asking for higher compensation. However, only 30% of women initiate salary negotiations compared to 46% of men. These figures equate to almost $2 million in lost revenue over a lifetime for professional women seeking to advance into leadership positions.

Earnings follow workers from one job to the next, and salary history is a standard part of employment applications. When women fail to negotiate their starting salaries, they are less likely to receive equitable earnings down the road. Lisa Maatz, the top policy advisor for the American Association of University Women and one of the nation's foremost advocates for equal pay, noted the importance of salary negotiation to closing the pay gap. As she discussed, when women negotiate salary, the pay gap shrinks—not completely, but significantly, and enough to make a major difference for many working women.

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