Dive Brief:

• A new study by Glassdoor Economic Research revealed a "salary confidence gap" between men and women, with "men being more self-confident in the workplace than women," the report said. Glassdoor data showed that men applied for jobs with base salaries averaging $13,635 higher than the ones women applied for, making for an 18.3% pay gap. But the salary gap disappeared when Glassdoor compared job applications from equally-qualified men and women looking for similar jobs.
• Glassdoor tested the salary confidence gap with five controls: 1) no controls; 2) age, education and years of experience; 3) industry, occupation, state and firm size; 4) company-specificity; 5) job titles; and 6) current salary.

• The gender pay gap continues to exist in the U.S. and around the world, Glassdoor said, but it's narrowing. The adjusted pay gap in the U.S. fell from 6.5% in 2011 to 4.6% in 2018. At that pace, the pay gap may not close until 2070.

Dive Insight:

Companies like Salesforce and Citigroup have moved ahead with plans to close the gender- and race-based pay gaps in their organizations. Other employers have been slower to act, possibly because they don't have the resources; Salesforce dropped $6 million to rectify the disparity.

Employers that haven't contributed to the progress that's being made — however painfully slow — will likely feel social pressure to act. States and cities nationwide have passed salary history bans that forbid employers from asking candidates what they earned in previous jobs. These laws were enacted to keep employers from basing wage offerings to candidates based on past earnings, a practice that historically keeps women's pay lower than men's, supporters of the laws claim.

Although a WorldatWork study showed that half of the employers polled find salary history bans easy to administer, 84% of employers still base wages on past earnings, despite the bans. When employers have access to reliable compensation data and pay ranges, the need for salary history decreases, the report said. HR leaders can work toward closing the pay gap by reviewing their organization's compensation practices, flagging pay disparities, working with managers to ensure pay increases are unilaterally fair and using compensation reports as the basis for pay decisions.