Glamours Salary Reveal Shows Gender Pay Gap Is Thriving

Glamours Salary Reveal Shows Gender Pay Gap Is Thriving Thegender pay gap- and its persistence - is leid new news. ButGlamours Big Salary Reveal, which profiles 6 women and 6 men in similar jobs, comparing their earnings, has created some juicy buzz around the issue.For the past two decades,GlamoursSalary Survey has investigated what women in various industries earn across the U.S. This year, for the 20th anniversary of the survey,Glamourdecided to take their research a step further andcompare womens earnings to mens face to face, physically juxtaposing the numbers.The duos included men and women who work as cashiers, in graphic design, data analytics, sales, social media/PR, and software engineering. The participants - all of whom were strangers - wrote their salaries down on cards. They were then asked, on the count of three, to flip their cards over. Whatd they find? You guessed it...in all but one of the pairs, the man earned more than the woman.AsGlamourputs it, The statistic wi dely cited is that women earn only 82 cents to a mans dollara discrepancy that would make anyone angry. But when youre looking at the black-and-white numbers of your salary compared to a mans, as our volunteers did, this policy issue becomes suddenly verypersonal.Indeed,Glamours article is particularly poignant because it brings a face (or faces, rather) to the gender wage gap - which can sometimes feel like a distant or abstract issue.Glamours article is careful to address critics of the pay gap, who contend that the statistics we sometimes see are misleading because they dont account for various factors that affect salary, such as experience, education, and the fact that women tend to work in lower-paying industries.However, as Glamour reports, a number of detailed studies have recently proved there are glaring disparities in many occupations, especially in high-paying, male-dominated fields like finance, insurance, and medicine. One report, in theJournal of the Medical Associatio n,found that female doctors at public medical schools with the same experience, volume of patients, and number of papers published made $20,000 (or 8 percent) less per year than their male counterparts.Other research, looking across professions, has found differences ranging from 9 percent to 2 percent,Glamourcontinues. And just 2 percent can translate into a huge financial setback For a woman earning todays average wage, it would result in $59,000 in lost income over the course of her careernot to mention lower retirement and Social Security benefits.What can we do to shrink the wage gap? For starters, transparency is key.Glamours article is so intriguing in part because salary information tends to be shrouded in secrecy. Thats why Fairygodboss is all about increasing transparency on workplace issues that are often difficult to address in person we crowdsource information to provide a comprehensivesalary databaseandmaternity leave resource center, among other resources. Increasing access to this information and facilitating more dialogue can help inform not only employees and job seekers, but also decision-makers at companies. By sharing with employers what best practices look like, we can encourage them to modify their existing policies and enact new initiatives so that theyre more equal and inclusive.For example, after feeling compelled to review salary information within his company,SalesforceCEO Marc Beinoff implemented a plan - with $3 1000000 in funding - to address the inequities he found. Moreover, he had publicly announced that he was conducting a compensation audit - setting an example for others who are in the position to do the same.WhileGlamours findings are disappointing (though not surprising), we are confident that were slowly moving (even if merely inching) in the right direction.Youcan help Fairygodboss bring transparency and attention to the gender pay gap bysharing your salary here.--Fairygodboss is committed to improving the workplace and lives of women.Join us by reviewing your employer