Negotiation & gender

[juliet]

I was pointed at this piece about how gender affects salary negotiation by a mailing list I'm on.

In general, there's evidence that women tend to be less good at negotiating salary than men do, & this has some interesting stuff about why that might be.

I was particularly interested in the experiment they discuss where they compared negotiating ability when negotiating for oneself as opposed to negotiating for someone else. Not only did the women (unlike the men) do significantly better when negotiating for someone else, but then men only did as well as the women negotiating for themselves (i.e. men_for_self = men_for_other = women_for_self < women_for_other). In other words, these women (in these set of circumstances) did not suffer. I'm actually slightly surprised by this as it contradicts what is said further up the article (that women negotiate lower salaries in highly ambiguous situations (as in the experiment), & it also seems to contradict the next para where they talk about women 'not [feeling] less entitled to a good salary'. Assuming there's no typo; I wonder if the artificial nature of the situation had an effect.

Anyway, more interesting really is the 18% difference when negotiating on behalf of someone else. My immediate speculation is whether this is to do with socialised modesty - which would be much less relevant if you're negotiating with someone else. Or objective self-analysis, which is closely connected with modesty (but not entirely so: you can believe, correctly or otherwise, that you are Teh Greatest but be reluctant to say so publicly).

More practically: I want a payrise in the summer, so maybe I need to start practicing not being modest...

Comments

[rgl.livejournal.com]

The interpretation of those results which immediately jumps to my mind (though I admit immediacy is rarely a sign of quality in my thoughts) is that the men are giving what they believe to be an "objective" review in all situations, as are the women when talking about themselves, but the women when talking about other people are inclined to talk them up as an act of social "altruism".

[juliet]

Yes, indeed. But the trouble is that this doesn't seem to match with other in-the-field evidence (of men being more likely to talk *themselves* up, broadly, and/or women being less good at being objective about themselves). It's a slightly odd result.

[rgl.livejournal.com]

Yes, sorry, I haven't had a chance to read the whole article. However, my intuition would be that, although men do typically talk themselves up in social situations, that may be less relevant in more formal job situations, and the obvious inequity in pay is probably down to other causes.

However, I've spent the afternoon typing hundreds of patient birthdates into a database, so my brain has turned to mush. And I haven't finished yet.

[juliet]

Hm. I know that one of the standard findings is that men will typically negotiate a starting salary figure, & women will typically accept what they're offered. I've had several discussions on this subject with other women in several different (online, mostly) places, & there seems to be indications that women do rate themselves lower to start with, as well as being averse to negotiating.

Some stats here: http://www.womendontask.com/stats.html

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

That's my experience, plus women being less bullish at coming back and insisting on more after an initial rebuttal. Perhaps especially when it looks like there are set payscales, because women may be less likely to think about attempting to blag a position further up the payscale, thinking that everyone starts at the bottom. Which isn't the case.

Also as pay rises are almost always done on percentage terms rather than absolute terms, if you're paid £2000 less when you first join a company, even if you then catch on and get identical pay rises to your colleagues after that, your pay gap will just get bigger and bigger.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Tangentially, did you see this (http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1711137,00.html) rather depressing piece about how even unions are a bit worried about the idea of gender-equal pay, because it might break the whole public sector?

[rgl.livejournal.com]

We (that is, UCL, where I work), have just gone through a massive pay restructuring thing which is all because of this problem. I think universities have seen it coming for a while, but my experience of the NHS would suggest they aren't quite so ready...

[juliet]

No, I hadn't - thanks for the link. Blimey.

[(Anonymous)]

bring it on

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

I was certainly much more bullish with my management about the salary for my incoming minion that we just hired than I have been with my own salary so far. However, that does have a lot with being new to the company. I am intending to be much more assertive at the next opportunity, particulary seeing that now even Cam Uni is offering $salary{"nicolai"}*1.13 or so for someone doing my sort of job. Gotta prove I'm up to the promotion I just got, first.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Interesting article, thanks!

More practically: I want a payrise in the summer, so maybe I need to start practicing not being modest...

From my reading of the article, and my own limited expertise, it might also be well worth 'doing your homework' to make the strongest case you can.

[juliet]

[nods] Absolutely; however, I'm slightly restricted in that since I work for a university, I'm on a set payscale - the issue (& I'm not going to go into it much further than this on a public post!) is getting a two-point rather than the (standard/basic) one-point jump. I'm massively underpaid compared to what I'd get in the private sector, that's accepted by everyone as a penalty for working in this sort of area :-/

(otoh, I am in a good position to compare my own achievements etc, & some speculation about pay, with my predecessor, & with other people in the same job in other unis)

[exponentialdk.livejournal.com]

When I moved from academia to industry, my salary doubled in about a year (without ever asking for a raise). The academic job (at MIT) got a pay scale increase that year, but the pay increase from changing employers would have still been more than 50% with the job change (considering only base salary: otherwise the difference was much, much greater). That was more than 7 years ago, and I only recently got over the feeling of being massively overpaid. It helps that I'm rather comfortable living in poverty.

[bob]

ask about the possibility of a skills bonus. certainly in ICT a few years back they realised that academic pay scales wont keep people. so my flat mate at the time got a 2 point payscale rise and a skills bonus of at least another couple of grand. but you didnt hear this from me, right :)

[juliet]

thanks for the tip!

[jvvw.livejournal.com]

So what's the etiquette when you're about to reply to a friend's post and you find someone from work has got there first? :-)

I reckon that not having practical advice on the language to use that won't come across as confrontational or arrogant is actually the biggest barrier for most women. It's like when you barter abroad - it's much easier and more comfortable when you know the code that gets used in the interaction.

Actually I wonder if women find it easier to negotiate pay if they are doing it in a language that isn't their native language (but in which they are fluent).

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

To be quite honest, I'm surprised more people aren't better at talking for tohers than themselves. I entirely identify with that idea. I can argue very vehemently on behalf of another person and often find myself presenting people's cases for them, but I cannot EVER talk myself up. I actually find it deeply embarrassing.

Hence my utter inability to do job interviews at all, in any way, shape or form.

That said, I'm not sure this is such a bad quality, except that it rebounds negatively on me. I wish more people would engage with the social 'altruism' thing.

[juliet]

I think that being able to talk other people up is good; but having that at the expense of being able to talk yourself up not necessarily so :-)

There is certainly indication (think I have put some links elsewhere in comments...) that this is a gendered thing - women are encouraged, far more than men, to be modest (from early childhood onwards). There's obviously two ways of dealing with that discrepancy - either start enforcing[0] modesty on men, or start encouraging women to value themselves more. I'm far more in favour of the latter, primarily because I think the inability to publicly admit your own value is bad for you. I'm not saying we should all go around going "HURRAH HOW GREAT AM I?!" or overstating ourselves; but a certain level of self-positivity is IMO a really good thing.

So I have been practising, for *years* now, & I'm getting better at it (more so in job situations, I think), but it can still be damn tough! Especially when you're not just a woman, but *British* to boot ;-)

[0] By social conditioning, I mean, same way as it happens to women/young girls.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Argh! I keep trying to respond to this and the server keeps messing me about!

So, my short response - good point (while the thought of enforcing modesty on men amused me in a definitely non-work-safe way!), though I am wary of gender solutions which encourage women to be 'more like men', bcos the masculine is the human ideal. I'm not saying that was your solution, of course, just that it's an idea worth bearing in mind.

Still, even if it's a good idea for me and many others to be more assertive, that doesn't actually make it feasible...

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

Hmmm are you on Systers too?

[juliet]

No, this came up on one of the LinuxChix lists, I think. Systers?

[weatherpixie.livejournal.com]

http://www.systers.org/


I tend to find it very US centric, but there are often interesting threads on gender differences which might be useful for you.