The Latest on Pay Equity
Take a look at a couple of recent reports on pay equity. Some good news, some slow progress, and some work to be done. We also note that there is a dearth of research into total compensation, a gray area where privilege and bias can creep in and exacerbate pay differences.
We can start with the State of Wage Inequality in the Tech Industry: Hired’s 2022 Impact Report. Some key findings and charts:
The wage gap narrowed if you look at pay equity alone — note that this does not look at total compensation which includes bonuses, incentives, equity, etc. Results vary depending on gender and race and intersectionality.
“Women were 13.2% less likely to receive an interview request relative to male candidates — compared to 7.3% less likely in 2020”
61.8% —percentage of positions offering a lower salary offer on average to women in 2021. (eg male technologists were offered higher salaries than women for the same job title and the same company.)
Some key findings and charts from the 2022 State of the Gender Pay Gap Report — by Payscale:
“The controlled gender pay gap measures “equal pay for equal work”. Uncontrolled gender pay gap measures median salary for all men and all women. Both the uncontrolled gender pay gap and the controlled gender pay gap are important for understanding how society values women.”
The gender pay gap by race, relative to white men…
This study looks across sectors; see below for engineering and computer.
And here is Payscale’s analysis of the gender pay gap by job level and race for those with at least a bachelor’s degree.
…Which widens as women progress through their career, and is even larger if you become a parent.
Referencing an older 2021 article — “Pay Gap for Women in Technology Persists, Despite Progress” — “Dice has found that the pay differential varies state by state, exceeding $15,000 in some instances. In New York, women technologists make an average of $8,914 less than their male counterparts; in California, it’s $5,369. Pay differentials also exist by occupation, with women data scientists making $9,561 less on average than men; women software engineers earn an average of $8,559 less.”
And even an employer with an equal pay certification may still contribute to the pay gap. Here’s what’s left out in pay equity calculations — variable pay (bonus, stock awards, equity). Two people with the same base pay can have wildly different total compensation based on what they negotiated as a bonus or equity.”
This is important because tech companies disproportionately rely more heavily on variable compensation. Per this HBR article —
And in this European report, we can see the impact in gender participation in in performance related pay. “Not only are women directly less likely than men to receive performance-related pay in similar jobs, but they are also much more likely to work in positions in which performance-related pay is less likely to be part of the package (Zwysen 2021).” “To the extent that women do not reach higher positions at the same rate as men — vertical segregation — they will also benefit less from these bonuses.”
Good news, 66% of employers plan to address pay equity this year.
- 66% of organizations recently surveyed by Payscale said a pay equity analysis is a planned initiative in 2022, a 20% increase over last year.
- Just over half said they plan to conduct either a gender- or race-based pay equity analysis specifically — the first time this has been a majority in the 13-year history of Payscale’s Compensation Best Practices Report.
- Only 36% of respondents knew their gender pay gap, and only 29% knew their racial pay gap.
