Payroll
Is there Gender Pay Disparity at Your Work? Different Answers from Men and Women
Does inequality at work start with differences in expectations? Men are more likely to expect higher job levels during their career — 29 percent of men think they will reach a director level or higher, compared to 22 percent of women.
Apr. 25, 2018
Equal pay for equal work? Maybe not, according to CareerBuilder’s Equal Pay Day (April 10) survey on men and women in the workplace. Nearly a third of women (32 percent) do not think they are making the same pay as men in their organization who have similar experience and qualifications, compared to 12 percent of men.
More than 800 hiring and human resource managers, and more than 800 workers, both of whom are employed in the private sector across industries, participated in this nationwide survey, from November 28 and December 20, 2017.
(Un)equal Expectations
Does inequality at work start with differences in expectations? Men are more likely to expect higher job levels during their career — 29 percent of men think they will reach a director level or higher, compared to 22 percent of women. A quarter of women (25 percent) never expect to reach above an entry-level role, compared to 9 percent of men. Almost a third of women (31 percent) think they’ve hit a glass ceiling within their organization.
|
Job Level Expected to Reach During Career
|
Men |
Women |
|
Company Owner |
7% |
6% |
|
Senior Management (CEO, CFO, CTO, etc.) |
6% |
4% |
|
Vice President |
4% |
2% |
|
Director |
12% |
10% |
|
Manager |
30% |
27% |
|
Professional/technical role |
33% |
26% |
|
Entry level |
9% |
25% |
The differences in expectations extend to salary. More than a third of women (35 percent) don’t expect to reach a salary over $50,000 during their career, compared to 17 percent of men, while roughly half of men (47 percent) expect to reach a six-figure salary, compared to 22 percent of women.
Women also tend to be less satisfied with opportunities for advancement at work. Only 34 percent of women are satisfied with career advancement opportunities at their current employer, compared to 44 percent of men, and 30 percent of women do not feel they have the same career advancement opportunities as men who have the same skills and qualifications at their organization, compared to 12 percent of men. They are also less likely to be satisfied with training and learning opportunities at their employer than men (43 to 55 percent).
Employers Stepping Up?
The overwhelming majority of employers (94 percent) think there should be equality of pay in the U.S., but when acting on it, employers may be less sure. More than one in 10 (15 percent) employers said they do not believe female workers make the same wage as their male counterparts at their organization. Half of HR managers think that female workers make the same wage as their male counterparts at their organization, and 35 percent said they would hope they do.
Should pay be transparent or forbidden to be discussed? Eighty-two percent of employers said there should be transparency of pay in the U.S., and 42 percent of employers said that proposed legislation that prohibits employers from asking job candidates for their salary history will help close the gender pay gap since salary histories cannot be discussed.
Research Method
This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by The Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder among 888 hiring and human resource managers ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government) and 809 employees ages 18 and over (employed full-time, not self-employed, non-government), between November 28 and December 20, 2017. Data for employers were weighted where necessary by company size and job level, and data for employees were weighted where necessary by gender, age, race/ethnicity, region, income, education, and industry to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.