> claims like these always irk me, like did you just compare averages by race/gender? Whoever made this claim, did they control for other factors, like job title/level or productivity?
I can’t speak for these numbers, but when we do them we account for these things. Obviously pay isn’t going to be fair, but it should be less unfair than it is at many places.
Part of the reason women get paid less where I currently work is because they ask less. That doesn’t mean every white man is paid much better, because not all men ask either. In general, however, you can generalise across experience, productivity, seniority and so on and say that some groups are paid less. There are a lot of factors which play into this beyond people not asking. Our metrics also show that employees who ask less frequently or are in general less assertive are also much less likely to leave their jobs. As such it becomes less of a risk to not give them raises. Risk of employees leaving is a factor you consider when balancing your budget, and I’m sure you can imagine other things which may play into this, some of which, shouldn’t.
> Part of the reason women get paid less where I currently work is because they ask less.
Yes, and that’s because as study after study has shown they’re less likely to successfully get more and not have it held against them.
> New research by Berkeley Haas Professor Laura Kray shows the belief that women don’t ask for higher pay is not only outdated, but it may be hurting pay equity efforts. Contrary to popular belief, professional women now report negotiating their salaries more often than men, but they get turned down more often, Kray found.
If you notice I spoke about my place of work. Not on the national or global norm. I’m sure times are changing, but it’s not what our internal metrics currently show at our company.
Do you have internal metrics showing that women who ask are treated the same way? That women are convincingly told that it won’t jeopardize their offers as it likely has at other employees? This stuff is insidious and it doesn’t need to happen every time, everywhere to shape people’s decisions.
We don’t have any sort of metrics which are that personalised.
I’m not sure you’re arguing against who you think you’re arguing against. I’m not defending it, I’m simply sharing how it is at our place. There are a lot of issues, if you took a wild guess at the demography of our manager staff I'm fairly certain you would get it right.
Yeah, supporting anecdote: only thing I got for trying to negociate my salary and benefits last time I tried, was my contract started over a month later so I technically lost that much pay, with zero changes to my contract. It just doesn't feel worth trying. Sure, you can blame me for poor negotiation skills maybe, or for not walking away from this job but contrast that to my partner's salary doubling without having to even ask... So it deeply irritates me when people say women don't get things because they don't ask. It is just a catch 22 situation.
I can’t speak for these numbers, but when we do them we account for these things. Obviously pay isn’t going to be fair, but it should be less unfair than it is at many places.
Part of the reason women get paid less where I currently work is because they ask less. That doesn’t mean every white man is paid much better, because not all men ask either. In general, however, you can generalise across experience, productivity, seniority and so on and say that some groups are paid less. There are a lot of factors which play into this beyond people not asking. Our metrics also show that employees who ask less frequently or are in general less assertive are also much less likely to leave their jobs. As such it becomes less of a risk to not give them raises. Risk of employees leaving is a factor you consider when balancing your budget, and I’m sure you can imagine other things which may play into this, some of which, shouldn’t.