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gender pay gap in technology

Pay gap for women persists in tech, despite progress

The gender pay gap in technology is narrowing, although much work remains to be done, according to a new report by Hired. The gender and race wage gap is still prevalent, with Black and Hispanic women continuing to see the widest gap.

According to the Hired 2021 Impact Report – Wage Inequality in the Workplace, men technologists were offered higher salaries than women for the same job title at the same company 59% of the time in 2020, compared to 65% in 2019. On average, women made 2.5% less than their male counterparts in 2020, down from 4.4% in 2019.

In terms of methodology, Hired drew from a sample dataset of 226,000 interview requests and job offers, supplemented by a self-reported survey that drew 2,000 responses.

Every year, Hired’s report finds that there is a strong link between the wage gap and the salary expectations of disadvantaged groups. The 2021 report found that companies offered women 3% less on average than men for the same roles in 2020, compared to 4% in 2019. At the same time, the average expectation gap decreased from 6% in 2019 to 3% in 2020, showing a clear correlation. 

Some 60% of women candidates also reported receiving offers lower than the average for their position and years of experience in 2020, compared to 66% in 2019.

“We continue to see that underrepresented talent who are paid less also expect lower salaries than their white, male counterparts – even if they have the same experience. Our data shows that offering everyone visibility into what a fair wage truly is would make a meaningful impact towards narrowing the wage gap,” said Josh Brenner, CEO of Hired. “We hope this report can give employers the confidence that increasing salary transparency and narrowing the wage gap is the right thing to do – for both their team and business. Our vision is to build a world where hiring is equitable, efficient, and transparent, and with the right commitment from businesses, that goal is achievable.”

Other key findings

Additional key findings from the report include: 

  • Certain markets have more work to do than others when it comes to narrowing the gender wage gap but all showed women are consistently offered less than men. In London, the gender wage gap remains at 10%, whereas it’s down to 5% in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most markets are in between these extremes, with Chicago and Boston at 8%, New York and Toronto at 7% and Seattle at 6%.
  • Black candidates saw wages that were 4% lower than the baseline in 2020 vs. a gap of 5% in 2019. By contrast, Asian candidates saw no change, receiving offers that were 1% lower in 2020 and 2019. 
  • White employees are less likely to have discovered they were being paid less than a colleague in the same role. On the occasions where they do discover a discrepancy, they receive a salary increase after surfacing the discrepancy 28% of the time. When Black or Hispanic employees surface pay discrepancies, they receive salary increases 20% and 15% of the time, respectively.
  • Race contributes significantly to the expectation gap, as low wage expectations are most prevalent in minority women compared to white women or minority men. For example, Black women expect salaries that are 10% lower than those of their white male counterparts.

Gender gap in tech worse than it was in 1984

Hired’s study echoes other findings about tech’s gender gap over the past few years. A recent study, led by Accenture and Girls who Code, concluded that the gender gap for women in technology as a whole is actually worse today than it was in 1984.

The study showed that 50% of women abandon technology careers by the age of 35 and that women are leaving tech roles at a 45% higher rate than men. Only 21% of women in the study said they believed the technology industry was a place they could thrive; sadly, that number falls precipitously to 8% for women of color.

 

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