Dive Brief:
- Paysa, a career advising firm, surveyed 2,075 people to gauge their perceptions on what others should be paid. Respondents thought that most jobs should pay more than they actually do. One exception was pay for physicians, who respondents thought should earn about $125,000 annually, when they actually earned on average $202,000.
- The survey also found that 60% of women felt underpaid, though 43.5% blamed it on their self-reported inexperience.
- Paysa noted that the largest pay gap for men and women focused on executive pay, whereby women thought they earn much less than men in executive positions.
Dive Insight:
The executive pay gap between men and women is well-documented, and women feeling underpaid isn’t a new concept either. The most startling revelation was that women felt men in executive positions deserved higher pay than executive women — a continued example of the built-in, unconscious biases that plague modern workplaces.
Women tend to start at a disadvantage pay-wise thanks to a large reliance on salary history as a basis for pay. What's normally a sensible way to discern pay scales can be skewed lower if women are consistently paid less in their other jobs.
The confidence gap is real, too. In many industries, it can be hard for women to see a path to the top thanks to a lack of women in leadership. Forward-thinking companies should consider creating leadership pipelines specifically supporting young, talented women to ensure both retention and fairness.
