Exploring the psychology of pay.
The psychology of employment is a complex subject, there's no widely regarded reason for why pay gaps exist but there are clear factors that have been identified in report findings and various studies.
Some of these findings are explored below and have factored heavily in the underpinnings of our mission at paygap.io.
- Conscious Bias
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It's no secret that boardrooms across the world are filled with men. When someone mentions the word boardroom, it's conjures up thoughts of aging middle class white men in suits.
But surely those days are gone? We live in a world of equality, right?..
In 2018 some of the top excuses for not appointing women were:
- "I don't think women fit comfortably into the board environment"
- "There aren't that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board - the issues covered are extremely complex"
- "Most women don't want the hassle or pressure of sitting on a board"
- "We have one woman already on the board, so we are done - it is someone else's turn"
- "We need to build the pipeline from the bottom - there just aren't enough senior women in this sector"
Still today in many FTSE 250 companies conscious bias is present, simply put, women are not getting opportunites because of a negative male thought process towards them.
Learn how our analyser platform let’s HR teams spot conscious bias trends here.
- Unconscious bias
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Unconscious bias occurs when people favour others who look like them and/or share their values. For example a person may be drawn to someone with a similar educational background, from the same area, or who is the same colour or ethnicity as them.
Source: (acas) http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5433Unconscious bias is a more forgivable issue when it comes to employment, it’s part of our make up and is part of what enables us to judge situations quickly in every day life based on our past experiences.
We can’t remove unconscious bias overall, but we can be aware of how it effects our ability to be fair employer. By monitoring each candidate that goes through our employment pipeline and providing justification for the decisions we make, we can begin to separate the facts from the bias.
Learn how our interviewer platform helps to aid the fairness process.
- Minority Mindset
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Gender pay gaps may be attributed to societal characteristics. Some studies have shown that women are less likely to negotiate when it comes to pay and therefore accept much lesser remuneration package. A recent American study by glassdoor confirmed this sentiment.
Glassdoor’s new survey reveals a majority of American employees – 3 in 5 (59%) – did not negotiate their salary in their current/most recent job. But, the numbers are even more surprising when broken down by gender. Women negotiated less than their male counterparts. 68 percent of women accepted the salary they were offered and did not negotiate, a 16-percentage point difference when compared to men (52%).
The study further reveals that when it comes to successfully securing more salary, only 1 in 10 (or 10%) of U.S. employees report negotiating their salary and getting more money in their current or most recent job. Men were also more than three times more successful than women in negotiating greater pay.
It’s also possible that women favour other factors to money when searching for a new role and therefore settle for lower (initial) compensation offers in favour of other criteria.
The stackoverflow developer survey 2018 surveyed IT professionals worldwide. In response to the question of “differences assessing jobs”, split by gender, men placed “The compensation and benefits offered” as the top assessment criteria, for non-binary respondents this response was the third highest sought after criteria and for women it placed in fourth with the top consideration being “The office environment or company culture”.
Source: (stackoverflow) https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2018/#work-differences-in-assessing-jobs-by-gender