The gender pay gap in technology companies has narrowed from four per cent to three per cent over the last year, according to new research – although black and Hispanic women, older women and LGBTQ+ people still earn significantly less than non-LGBTQ+, white men*. These results are from Hired’s Wage Inequality in the Workplace Report 2019, which gathered results by analysing its own proprietary and survey data relating to wage inequality and discrimination across US cities, age groups, roles, race, and sexual orientation.
Due to lack of transparency and factors like “imposter syndrome” women and minorities have lower salary expectations than men, which contributes towards their lower pay. In fact, 61 per cent of women ask for lower salaries than male counterparts. To put this into perspective, white men ask for $1 and that’s what they receive. Both white and Hispanic women’s salaries match their expectations: $0.97 and $0.91 respectively. Black women expect $0.91 but only get $0.89. It is promising, however, that women are increasingly knowing their worth, with this percentage declining by eight per cent since 2017.
Discrimination also remains an issue for women in the tech workplace. Sixty-five per cent of women have felt discriminated against because of their gender in the last five years. The most common form of discrimination is the inability of company leadership to take women seriously (40 per cent), followed by unfair pay (38 per cent). Furthermore, one in five black and Hispanic women have suffered discrimination because of their race. This carries over into the recruitment process, where 41 per cent of the time companies are interviewing only men for an open role.
Some other interesting findings from the report are that: Only 24 per cent of candidates interviewed for the average tech role are women; 60 per cent of the time, men are offered more money than women for the same role; A tale of two cities: the pay gap is lowest in San Francisco (six per cent) and highest in Boston (nine per cent); Just 72per cent of men believe there is a gender pay gap, compared to 90 per cent of women; The tech role with worst wage gap is DevOps (10per cent) and the top paid starting salary is for female Product Managers, with $135k (£102k).
Mehul Patel, CEO of Hired, commented,
It is promising to see that the wage gap in the technology sector has fallen from four per cent to three per cent in the last year. However, it is extremely disheartening to see the compounding disparities based on race, age and sexual orientation still pertain within the industry.
*from Hired
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Aphrodite is a creative writer and editor specialising in publishing and communications. She is passionate about undertaking projects in diverse sectors. She has written and edited copy for media as varied as social enterprise, art, fashion and education. She is at her most happy owning a project from its very conception, focusing on the client and project research in the first instance, and working closely with CEOs and Directors throughout the consultation process. Much of her work has focused on rebranding; messaging and tone of voice is one of her expertise, as is a distinctively unique writing style in my most of her creative projects. Her work is always driven by the versatility of language to galvanise image and to change perception, as it is by inspiring and being inspired by the wondrous diversity of people with whom paths she crosses cross!
Aphrodite has had a variety of high profile industry clients as a freelancer, and previously worked for a number of years as an Editor and Journalist for Prospects.ac.uk.
Aphrodite is also a professional painter.
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