There are many ‘truths’ espoused by both men and women about the gender pay gap. This is not a ‘men don’t get it debate’; rather, an opportunity to hold up the mirror to ask why this is so. And it can be changed. Our community has an unconscious bias regarding pay equity.

It does not matter if you are a young female graduate, a teacher or an executive, women are paid less at every level.

Here are 10 myths:

  1. Women don’t want the top job.
  2. Women who are successful are ‘aggressive’ and self-serving
  3. Women hate office politics – so are happy to sit back
  4. Women don’t negotiate hard enough because they are thinking of the ‘team’
  5. Women have other priorities and work is not important
  6. Women won’t do the ‘dirty’, cold or hard jobs
  7. Women have less networks and are less connected
  8. Women have less experience
  9. Women would rather stay home and look after the children
  10. Women see themselves as nurturers

It does not matter if you are a young female graduate, a teacher or an executive, women are paid less at every level.

“Using robust micro-economic modelling techniques, based on a comprehensive and critical evaluation of several methodologies, studies found that simply being a woman is the major contributing factor to the gap in Australia, accounting for 60 per cent of the difference between women’s and men’s earnings.” – A 2009 report by the National Center for Social and Economic Modelling.

How women regard themselves is critical to pay equity – women often define themselves by societal ‘norms’ (‘But they need me,’ I hear women say). Many women still innately believe that they need to ‘prove’ themselves, as such they will perform a role for much less financial gain – and until women are paid the same for the same effort then there is no equality.

Most organisations keep salary information private – people do not know what their peers are paid. As such the obligation to drive pay equity must start with the Human Resources folks – or a request from the board to review it.

  • Step One – do a review of all employees’ remuneration.
  • Step Two – present the facts to leadership.
  • Step Three – make the change – simply increase female salaries to get them in alignment! (Review annually.)

The key is visibility and leadership
Something has got to change, and organisations will continue to pay women what they think they can ‘get away with’ or what women settle for (often not knowing what their peers are paid). Leadership has to want it … and pursue it single-mindedly, and not settle until they know, hand on heart, that their organisation has eliminated unconscious bias by annually reviewing the data.

This article originally appeared in Business Chicks. To read the full article click here.