
How the “what’s your current salary?” question hurts the gender pay gap - floatalong
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2016/04/29/how-the-whats-your-current-salary-question-hurts-the-gender-pay-gap/
======
patrickmay
> Cornell professors Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found that women were
> paid 79 cents for each dollar a man was paid. Even after adjusting for type
> of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92
> cents for each dollar.

This is not supported by the evidence. See, for example, this article by
Christina Hoff Sommers ([http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-
not-die/](http://time.com/3222543/5-feminist-myths-that-will-not-die/)):

"No matter how many times this wage gap claim is decisively refuted by
economists, it always comes back. The bottom line: the 23-cent gender pay gap
is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women
working full-time. It does not account for differences in occupations,
positions, education, job tenure or hours worked per week. When such relevant
factors are considered, the wage gap narrows to the point of vanishing."

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
If you are going to account for position, how do you account for the fact that
women are often in a lower ranked position, because they are less likely to be
promoted? You can't claim there's no pay gap just because it's being
obfuscated by bias in job titles.

~~~
chrisfosterelli
I'm not going to argue that this accounts for it entirely, but I do think it's
worth pointing out that women typically are less interested in higher ranked
positions than men tend to be [0]. They are less likely to be promoted because
they are less likely to _want_ a promotion.

[0]
[http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/112/40/12354.abstract)

~~~
electrograv
_> They [women] are less likely to be promoted because they are less likely to
want a promotion._

I don't think anyone could ask for a better example of systemic entrenched
sexist bias than this quote. "It's okay, don't worry about it; they just don't
want to be promoted as much as us men."

This is not that much different from the old "women enjoy being in their
husband's kitchen and tending to the house, so it's okay most women are there
instead of working independently!" Evidence clearly exists that lot of women
used to enjoy being in the kitchen, but that doesn't mean women are less
suited to work outside the kitchen -- to make an extreme example.

~~~
nwah1
Hmm more like "those awful males are so competitive in pursuing career
advancement. Maybe testosterone has some sort of effect."

~~~
tomp
I think a lot of it has to do with sexual competition. Men know that women are
(in general) attracted to power, so they spend effort on earning money and
becoming more powerful. Conversely, women know that men are attracted to
beauty and youth, so they spend time and money on trying to look younger and
prettier.

~~~
zardgiv
Is there a citation for women in general being attracted to power? Or perhaps
you're just reinforcing gender stereotypes that are convenient for the
narrative you're spinning?

~~~
tomp
Not trying to spin a narrative (I don't have an agenda), this is just based on
my personal observations, both of people around me, and the society as a whole
(famous people, media, movies, ...).

~~~
zardgiv
I mean, when you say that "women (in general) are attracted to [X]," since
youre ralking about half of the world's population, that's a pretty
extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence to support it.

~~~
tomp
I guess it's more like a working hypothesis, based on the (circumstantial and
anecdotal) evidence that I've collected so far. It's by no means enough
evidence, so I'm open to changing my opinion (given conflicting evidence).

------
bdrool
> Cornell professors Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found that women were
> paid 79 cents for each dollar a man was paid. Even after adjusting for type
> of job, industry, experience, location and education, the gap remained 92
> cents for each dollar.

What do they mean "even" after controlling for those factors? Why _wouldn 't_
you control for those factors -- the comparison is meaningless otherwise.

~~~
geofft
Suppose, hypothetically, that 10% of all managers are outright sexists and
won't promote women. (This is a thought experiment, I'm not making any claim
about the real world.) Then, if equally-qualified men and women apply for the
same jobs, you'd expect that the "type of job" class is going to include some
higher-paying jobs for men about 10% more frequently than for women. If you
"control for" those factors, you are eliminating from your sample all women
who work for outright sexists. It might be true that the wage gap is (almost)
zero once you do that, but your experimental design is flawed.

~~~
mrgoldenbrown
Plenty of people have done actual experiments and found that many hiring
managers are biased, though I don't think anyone is claiming they are outright
sexists. Unconcious bias is plenty bad enough to explain current disparities
in opportunity for minority genders and races.
([https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&oq=Resumes+with+male+names+are+ranked+higher+than+identical+resumes+with+female+names&aqs=chrome..69i57.783j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8))

------
drcross
>Study after study demonstrates that women are paid less than men in the
United States.

I wish some of these studies are cited because if you are telling me that I
could hypothetically be able to hire someone who is able to do the same job,
for less money (like the fabled 79%), I would gladly take them up on the
offer. Unfortunately it doesn't exist except in delusional minds. This is the
free market, not some global male conspiracy.

~~~
angelbob
From the article: "Cornell professors Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found
that..."

Here you go, I Googled that for you:
[http://inequality.stanford.edu/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_...](http://inequality.stanford.edu/_media/pdf/key_issues/gender_research.pdf)

Now, the study in question is cited.

------
throwthis
As an aside, isn't that question inherently just flat out wrong?

Q: 'What's your current salary?'

A: 'Why does it matter? What am I worth to you?'

~~~
disease
I'm currently in an underpayed development position and am trying to get to
market rate, yet every recruiter and HR person asks this question.

Anyone have any idea what would happen if I just refused to answer it and use
the 'I'm looking to be paid what I'm worth to the company' line?

~~~
cannam
My most uncomfortable interview experience (nearly 20 years ago) came about
because of this problem.

I was working in a job I enjoyed, but that didn't pay well. The money had
started to become a problem and I started looking for something better-paid.
(This was London in 1997 -- I was being paid about £25K and I hoped for more
like £35K.)

I used a recruiter, I told them my current salary and what I hoped to get, and
they got me a promising-looking interview.

Cut to the interview, and one of the first questions they ask is "Why do you
think we should pay you ten grand more than you're getting at the moment?"

Hindsight gives me many ways to answer this, but at the time I just sat there
with my mouth open. I had no idea the agent had told them my current salary,
so I was completely unprepared. I was dimly aware that a proper answer would
express something about my value to the company, so I couldn't just say "I
need more money". I eventually muttered something about that seeming to be
roughly the market rate, and the interview was effectively over.

------
tomphoolery
Inflate your current salary by $20,000 if this question is asked.

~~~
adrr
Lying during interview process is very dangerous for your career. If you don't
want to answer, don't answer.

~~~
jimbobimbo
It has nothing to do with lying. It's a bullshit answer to a bullshit
question. Your _current_ salary is nobody's business (unless they're IRS).

------
russelluresti
> When it comes to making pay decisions, we anchor too much on someone’s
> current salary instead of what the job is worth. Imagine hiring two
> accountants. One (call her Eliza) currently makes $50,000 and the other
> (Alexander) makes $58,000. And let’s say the average accountant in your
> company makes $60,000. It feels natural to offer Alexander a salary of
> $60,000, just like everyone else gets. But for most managers, it feels wrong
> to give Eliza the same salary. After all, that’s a $10,000 raise! Wouldn’t
> that be unfair to Alexander, who only got a $2,000 raise? And why not save a
> few bucks by paying people based on their past salaries?

What? No. Who thinks this way? The role at your company has a $60k salary.
People you hire for that role get $60k, no matter how much they were being
paid in the past.

Is this really a difficult concept for people?

~~~
bobwaycott
Given the comments in this thread, it seems this is an insanely difficult
concept to grasp. It's like the notion just bounces off Teflon.

But ... but ... but John is working 60 hours a week for his $60K, and Jane
puts her foot down and doesn't work more than 40 hours! She's not as
_committed_! She doesn't _want it_ badly enough! She doesn't _deserve_ to be
paid $60K when she's working 20 hours less!

So Jane gets punished because John is a dumbass who lets the company steal 20
hours of unpaid additional labor. Can't have John thinking about that, though,
so Jane gets a pay cut because she's not "working as hard" as John.

But ... but ... but John just negotiated better/harder/longer/more
successfully! It's Jane's fault she's paid less. She's just poor at
negotiations.

Bullshit. If ever there was a reason to eliminate salary negotiations, this is
one of the stronger cases. Just fucking pay a set wage for each position in
the company. Make it known. Enjoy there being no wage tension or envy in the
workplace. Be proud you've eliminated any chance that your team members could
even entertain the notion you weren't valuing them equally and fairly.

Oh, wait. That's stupid. Instead, let's argue about just _exactly how much_
less women are paid—but as a whole, cos it's really nasty when we start
breaking the pay gap down by ethnicity. Cos it's so productive to argue about
the rules for quantifying the pay gap than it is to just start and stop at the
simple rule that _there shouldn 't fucking be one_.

~~~
whatok
> Be proud you've eliminated any chance that your team members could even
> entertain the notion you weren't valuing them equally and fairly.

Are all team members contributing equally and fairly?

~~~
bobwaycott
C'mon. You assume they are/will when you hire them. When/if you discover they
are not, you don't cut their pay, you fire them.

It seems you're trying to angle for some defense of Peter earning more than
Paul because the former contributed "more". Contributing to a team isn't a
metric that should be set by an overachiever. Everyone—especially every
overachiever (including myself)—should disabuse themselves of the notion that
others aren't contributing equally when they're really just not over-
contributing. And evaluating contributions is already a difficult and
subjective task.

A better approach is offer the over-achievers a promotion. New position, new
responsibilities perhaps, and a new salary. Attainable equally by anyone else
who wants it.

~~~
whatok
I'm arguing that talented people move to greener pastures when they feel that
they are undervalued or not treated equally. If for every overachiever you
have x number of people who go "well I'm going to get paid the same as long as
I put in my 40", you will no longer have a successful company. If you doubt
the existence of this, you will have proven that you have never worked for the
government.

> A better approach is offer the over-achievers a promotion. New position, new
> responsibilities perhaps, and a new salary. Attainable equally by anyone
> else who wants it.

I don't see how this is any different from offering pay raises. What if there
is no room for advancement in the company? How do you measure whether people
qualify for this? You can always offer more pay, you aren't necessarily able
to create new job responsibilities and titles out of thing air.

~~~
bobwaycott
> _I 'm arguing that talented people move to greener pastures when they feel
> that they are undervalued or not treated equally._

Well, if everyone has the same jobs and responsibilities for the same pay, and
someone thinks they aren't being treated equally, they're wrong, aren't they?
They are being treated equally. What they're wanting is to be treated as
better than equal to their peers. And if they think they're undervalued, but
nobody else feels that way, that seems to further indicate they are wanting to
be treated as better than equal to their peers. This is irrational and
selfish. If everyone lounging on the other side's green grass is also treated
equally and valued the same, then there will be no other green pastures to
seek reinforcement of one's belief that s/he is better and worth more than
other team members.

> _If for every overachiever you have x number of people who go "well I'm
> going to get paid the same as long as I put in my 40", you will no longer
> have a successful company._

If a company's success depends on extracting more labor from their employees
than they are willing to pay for, the company is morally and ethically in the
wrong, and has far greater problems to tackle. If its success depends on
abusing overachievers, the overachievers should stop permitting such abuse,
and the company should realign its objectives with treating employees fairly.
Employees—especially those on salary—should not be subjected to overworking. A
company should take an active role in ensuring its workers don't burn
themselves out.

> _If you doubt the existence of this, you will have proven that you have
> never worked for the government._

Disagreement proves nothing, and whether I have ever worked for the government
is in no way germane to this discussion.

> _I don 't see how this is any different from offering pay raises. What if
> there is no room for advancement in the company? How do you measure whether
> people qualify for this? You can always offer more pay, you aren't
> necessarily able to create new job responsibilities and titles out of thing
> air._

Pay raises are not and should not be tied to promotions. I was talking here of
satisfying the overachiever's need to be recognized as "special". I'm that
type of person, but I've also disabused myself of the notion that my natural
inclination to push myself is a negative reflection on those around me. I have
to remain mindful that we are all different in our own ways, and that
difference shouldn't translate into greater remuneration for me only. If there
are pay raises to be had—and there should be—they should be applied equally to
all. If an overachiever doesn't want new responsibilities and a promotion to
feel special, then s/he ought to be able to accept that being paid equally for
the same job is not a personal slight. If a company cannot offer pay raises
equally, they should not offer them at all. If everyone is putting in their 40
hours, and one overachiever is putting in 60, the wrong response is for the
company to pressure everyone else to be like the lone overachiever.

Measuring whether people qualify for a raise is rather simpler than it's made
to be, apparently. Is the person performing satisfactorily in their job? Is
the budget able to handle an annual raise or bonus for good work? Then
everyone who isn't being fired gets it.

Treating people equally, and valuing them all individually, is not a very
complicated thing to do.

------
brianmcconnell
I think where a lot of technical people get fleeced in compensation
discussions is they let themselves get into a 1:1 personal discussion where
they feel compelled to agree on the spot. Most business deals are worked out
at a distance once the in person meetings are out of the way.

Treat this the same way you might go over a lease for office space. Let them
make the initial offer (they have much better data about market rate and what
they are willing to pay, you don't and may box yourself into a lowball
position). Then take some time to figure out if it works, and take the comp
discussion offline.

Keep the negotiation about compensation in writing. There are a million ways
for an experienced negotiator to manipulate you in a live conversation. Break
things down (salary, PTO, equity, 401k match, telework, other hard benefits),
and figure out where they'll budge. And remember, it's not about being greedy,
you'll be locking in your pay for 1-2 years, and you're doing your job of
negotiating a good deal for you and your family. If someone doesn't respect
that, that's a big red flag right there.

------
dlist
Presume you were born a slave. Your family had been slaves for 5 centuries.
Slaves are taught in early childhood that walking is always the "honourable"
thing to do - only free people ride. Slaves also never fight back in an
argument, always give way, always put other people's needs first, shrink their
own presence as much as possible, etc.

Even when you earn your freedom, your instinct when anyone asks for riders
would be to walk. You have to unlearn multiple anti-patterns of freedom and it
is a conscious effort every single day to keep up your guard. When someone
rejects you, you never know if it is because of the specific task you
completed, or an anti-pattern, or your past slave roots. 30% of your brain
goes towards self-correcting and self-consciousness, leaving only 70% to focus
on a task. That means only slaves that sport an IQ of 130 to keep up with a
non-inhibited free person. Furthermore, every single one of your elderly and
senior Slave relatives scolds you every time you do a free person action, for
not honouring your heritage. On top of that, some unknown percentile of free
people cannot see themselves taking orders from a former slave in a higher
position than them at work. Add insult to injury, because it is very obvious
you are a slave (all slaves have an extra body part) a mistake is instantly
attributed to your slavehood, further adding to the bias libraries of free
people and to your own self-consciousness. Forgot to mention, you still have
to do 100% of your slave duties in 50% of your time as a free person. It is a
HUGE f-ing hill to climb.

However since slaves have carried half of humanity's domestic needs for the
past 5 centuries, they've also built up tremendous self-discipline and other
valuable muscles required to survive that darn hill. The moment they are able
to apply their freedom and start thinking and acting like independent
enterprising people is the moment they solve all mundane unnecessary
inefficiencies they have been doing to "honor" the heritage of servitude.
Humanity gets half of its productivity back, and uses the brainpower to deploy
to more important things than walking. Before that point you're feeding 100
people but get the productivity of 50. After that point, you are getting 100
at the productivity of 200 for the same feeding costs. Add the exponential
growth of knowledge and tech and developed technology might beat an extinction
level event to save itself one day because of the acceleration. Conditioning
and history aught to teach us to stop treating other humans as inferior and to
build systems that apply the intellect of every one of us. The alternative is
a waste.

------
pekk
Aside from arguing about whether there is some kind of feminist misinformation
campaign regarding the size of the pay gap, does anyone want to talk about the
effect of "what's your current salary" on the pay gap?

------
alanh
I never answer this question. I always answer with my salary expectations and
push back if the recruiter is trying to play hardball. Answering gives them
leverage over you.

------
mordocai
Whatever your feelings on the existence (or not) of the "gender pay gap" the
process the article describes seems perfectly fair. I think people are getting
hung up on the gender part and not seeing the "fair pay" system they've
apparently setup.

------
arprocter
Isn't the question kind of pointless?

I'd imagine most people would exaggerate their current pay

~~~
pekk
It is part of trying to bargain people down, so it isn't pointless for the
recruiter.

------
drdeadringer
I'm wondering why people don't respond with something like "My past salary is
confidential, my asking salary is XYZ" and//or "What is the budget window for
this position".

------
dbbk
I don't understand this 'gender pay gap' concept at all. Whatever figure my
compensation is is, to a large extent, quite arbitrary. Sure there's a general
sense of what range I should expect my salary to be in, based on my
experience/location/etc, but really the final figure comes down to whatever
number gets thrown out and accepted in negotiation.

So if you poll half a workforce who are male, and poll half a workforce who
are female, and discover that their pay doesn't line up... why would you be
surprised?

~~~
geofft
Right, that's not surprising, _if you do that poll once_. There's a 50% chance
of that.

If you do that poll _repeatedly_ , over many groups and many industries and
many times and many subsets, and in _every case_ the men are paid more
(whether 5% or 23%), there is either an actual statistical difference, or
Maxwell's social justice demon is out to get you.

And if there is an actual statistical difference, the question is why. Are men
more valuable to the market?

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>Are men more valuable to the market?

And if so, why? Maybe men and women work equally hard, all else being equal,
but in a society where a man's income is used to determine his worth as a
person to a greater extent that a woman's income is used to determine her
worth, a man will spend more time focusing on improving his income, and thus
work in ways that provide more value by sacrificing quality of life (while a
woman in such a society would focus on increasing what ever attributes the
society judges her worthiness based upon). In such a case, there is clearly
sexism, but unequal pay is not the cause, only a symptom, and thus equalizing
pay will only cover up a symptom of the deeper problem (and perhaps even
exaggerating the problem).

~~~
antisthenes
People should really stop labeling some double standards towards men and women
sexism.

The sexes are NOT the same and should not be treated the same. In fact it is
quite ironic how the libertarian leaning HN crowd manages to fit the
conflicting facts of just markets and wage discrimination in their collective
heads.

------
hubb
though predictable, it's disappointing to read HN's collective response to
posts like this

~~~
kelukelugames
The good news is these posts get flagged off the frontpage quickly so we might
miss it and not click into the comment section.

