Gender Wage Gap – How Does Your Organization Stack up?

Many of us can recite the general differences of what a woman makes vs. a man. We hear it on the news, the politicians remind us and of course, we can see the evidence in our paycheck.

We know it isn’t right. Yet, how do we correct this inequality?

Many say “what gets measured gets done.”

I met Wendy Edwards a few months ago. We initiated our conversation within Anita Borg’s Systers forum.  Systers is a forum for all women involved in the technical aspects of computing. We discussed women in tech and landed on salary differences between genders.

From this conversation, Wendy shared a few preliminary findings that indicated salary disparities between women and men. Please note, most companies are not required to share their salary differences by gender for public consumption, however; there are many government and educational institutions legally obligated to provide information about salary, job title, and gender because of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and public records acts.

Wendy compiled the salary stats from National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), which are included in this article.

At NCSA, the difference between the average salary for men and the average salary for women was approximately $16000 a year. At TACC, the difference was around $12000. Much of this discrepancy is explained by the distribution of gender in job categories. Women tend to be overrepresented in lower-paying clerical jobs and underrepresented in higher-paying technical and leadership positions. When salary and gender were broken down by individual job title, men’s salaries at NCSA still tended to be higher than women’s. The disparity was less pronounced at TACC.

Overall statistics:
NCSA
Total full-time employees 187
Male 139
Female 48
Average Salary 82595.61
Male 86850.04
Female 70275.51

TACC
Total full-time employees 129
Male 97
Female 32
Average salary 90270.19
Male 93294.76
Female 81101.94

If you are interested in the details, the results summarized above can be found by clicking here.

Realistically, this doesn’t mean that NCSA and TACC are outliers in terms of gender equity. Some private sector companies might be even worse. NCSA and TACC were included in because they were relatively large university research computing centers and the data was freely available.

The Washington Post published an article entitled At This Rate, Women Won’t See Equal Pay Until 2058.

Using information including number of women working, in management roles, salary, etc. they broke the details down by state. Florida is estimated to reach equal pay levels as early as 2038 while Louisiana women will have to wait until after 2100!

The author of the article, Danielle Paquette, goes on to state that education and childbearing years also play a part in the difference between salaries by gender:

“Women now outpace men in college enrollment. Those with a bachelor’s degree typically earn twice as much as those with less than a high school diploma.
But across all levels of education, men earn significantly more than women with equal schooling. The wage gap is the largest for those with the most educational attainment: Women with graduate degrees make only 69.1 percent of what men with graduate degrees earn. The share jumps to 71.4 percent for women with bachelor’s degrees. (Both groups take on comparable amounts of debt.)”

The U.S. government also has a gender wage gap. From the article 26 Stats About Women in Government we learn:

• The median salary for women in state government is $42,168.20 versus $48,830.50 for men, according to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) most recent figures.
• The wage gap is slightly wider for city positions, with the median salary for women being $46,111.50 versus $54,169 for men.

Pay difference aside, it will be seven lifetimes before we are equally represented:

• If we progress at our current rate, we can expect women to be equally represented in Congress in 500 years, according to Representation 2020

What is the answer? Perhaps we can learn a lesson from the research that Wendy has done. Greater transparency about employee salaries based on gender, title, and qualifications could spark conversations and actions to minimize disparities and eventually equalize wages.

How does your organization stack up? When was the last time you reviewed salaries by gender and title?

If you are interested in getting involved or learning more, check out the American Association of University Women (AAUW). They have also published The Simple Truth, a report that provides more information on the gender wage gap.  The Anita Borg Institute also has a Top Companies program aimed at helping employers analyze their data and improve the representation of women in technical positions.  Information is available here: https://anitaborg.org/profiles/top-companies/

If you are interested in discussing salary difference by gender with Wendy or seek assistance in your diversity model, please feel free to complete the contact information.

Additional Data Points

Additional data from other Supercomputing Centers were requested, but fees and laws prevented data acquisition. Follow the urls listed below for a more detailed breakdown of the information available from NCSA and TACC.

 Both NCSA and TACC have voluntarily posted diversity statistics online. 

JJ DiGeronimo is the President of Tech Savvy Women.  TSW partners with organizations seeking business value through thought diversity initiatives that attract, retain, celebrate, and promote experienced women in technology and related industries.

A special thank you to Wendy Edwards  and Anita Borg’s Systers forum for making this post possible.