As a Woman, the Bigger Your Pay Check, the Bigger the Pay Gap
Even if you earn very good money, chances are the guy next to you doing the same job makes more than you
“I was nervous when I signed your contract. You’re the first woman I’ve hired and paid so much money!”
I was at a loss for how to respond. Did he expect praise? Sure, when I was hired, I thought I’d gotten a good deal. But that was before I got an 11% raise ten months later—without asking for it.
My company was actively addressing the gender pay gap as part of its DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) initiative. They noticed I was underpaid compared to the men in my team and gave me a hefty pay rise.
At this point, my hiring manager was no longer my manager. Shortly after he hired me, one of the many organizational shifts in the company relegated him to the sidelines.
I was in a new region under a new manager, so he had no idea this had happened when he approached me, slightly drunk, at a company party to tell me what a hero he had been to hire me — a woman — and pay me so much money.
But still less than my male colleagues.
Tech pays well. This job was no exception. It came with a generous six-figure salary and excellent benefits. If my company hadn’t decided on its own to end gender pay inequality, I’d never have found out that I’d been given the short(er) end of the stick.
For a second, I considered telling him how much he’d cost me by underpaying me for a year. Money that I would never get back. But I didn’t. I decided to give him an awkward smile and move on.
In retrospect, I wish I’d let him know what I thought about his misogynistic worldview. But at the time, I had no idea this was a common experience for women. Especially if they’re working in jobs that require a higher education. Like tech.
Turns out, the gender pay gap is wider for women in jobs that require a college degree or higher. In 2022, it was 30% for women with an advanced degree.
According to Census Bureau data analysed by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the gender wage gap stood at 20.3 percent for Americans without a high school degree and grew to roughly 30 percent for workers with a college degree or higher. Even straight out of college, the EPI finds, women get paid $4.50 less per hour than their male peers.
Given this information, I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I was only 11% underpaid. Coincidentally, that’s precisely the gender pay gap in architecture and engineering professions in 2023, as reported by Forbes Adviser.
But why are women with higher educations facing a higher gender pay gap? Besides the usual factors that influence women to be paid less, of course.
It doesn’t make any sense to me. After all, we work in jobs that routinely force us to have difficult conversations, negotiate, and assert ourselves. We should be able to negotiate fair pay, right?
I asked other women who work in well-paid tech jobs what they thought about this.
One theme that came up repeatedly was gratitude. We feel grateful for the offers we get.
Working in the tech space makes you financially privileged — there are other issues, as my story shows — but it pays really well.
I am grateful that working in tech has allowed me to never worry about money and to support others.
My tech job allows me to support my elderly father, who lives in Nigeria without a pension. Last year, when I felt I needed to take a four-month sabbatical, I did so without thinking twice.
Compared to my friends and other people I went to university with, I earn a shit-ton of money. So, when I look at an offer, my first emotion is gratitude.
I feel lucky to have the necessary skills to be paid so much. I am so lucky that I have issues expecting or imagining that I deserve even more. It feels ungrateful to ask for more.
Men seem to be different in this respect. They feel more entitled to the money they earn. There’s not only a gender pay gap but also an entitlement gap.
Women’s depressed sense of entitlement is rooted in the idea that they have been socialized to base their entitlement to advance on past performance, whereas men tend not to believe this about themselves at all. For most men, the past is the past. It’s all about the future. Can I do this job? I think so. Therefore, I will.
What I took away from this experience is that there’s no way to know if you’re underpaid or not if you don’t talk openly about salaries. We live in a world that is intentionally vague about money and income.
Women, who are even less inclined to talk about money than men, have a hard time understanding how much they should ask for. But they’re not alone. Most of us have no idea what anyone is earning.
Unless you’re Finnish, Finnland has decided that transparency is the way to go. Once a year, on “Financial Jealousy Day,” they publicly announce what people earn:
Being able to find out people’s pay can serve a broader purpose. For advocates of transparency, Finland’s openness is a good thing, allowing open and clear debate about earnings and helping screen out discrimination as well as denting the reputations of those seen not to be paying their fair share.
To level the playing field, I’ve become my own tiny Finland. I mentor and support women who work in the tech industry. And I tell them what I earn so they know what to expect.
The only way to normalize women demanding high wages is to show them what they deserve to be paid.
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Pay transparency is incredibly important in countering pay discrepancy.