8 Questions to Assess Your Organization for Gender Pay Bias

March marks an important annual conversation about women in the United States. During this month, we celebrate three big moments – Women’s History Month, International Women’s Day, and Women’s Equal Pay Day. The driving purpose behind these events are bringing awareness to a historically marginalized group that has been silenced for generations and treated as less than human for even longer.

While women have made incredible strides in fighting for access to equal rights and opportunities, we are still behind our male counterparts in many ways. And our non-binary and trans peers have an even more difficult gap to close. (Come back here in June for more details.) For the purposes of this post, I will focus on women specifically. Women’s Equal Pay Day will fall on March 14, 2023. This date signifies the current gender pay gap of 16%. This day is celebrated to show how much more women must work to earn as much pay as men.

A gap of 16% may not seem like much, but I invite you to dig deeper into these numbers. First, the 16% gap is generalized across women. When you dig deeper into the data, you will see greater disparities depending on a woman’s identity and/or family situation. Here are some examples provided by the AAUW:

·       Black women are paid 67% and 64% of every dollar paid to white men.

·       Moms are paid 74% and 62% of every dollar paid to dads.

·       Latinas are paid 57% and 54% of every dollar paid to white men.

·       Native women are paid 57% and 51% of every dollar paid to white men.

·       Asian American and Pacific Islander women are paid 92% and 80% of every dollar paid to white men.

·       There is not enough data to calculate a gender pay gap for LGBTQIA+ folks.

Many people may assume these gaps show up because these women have less work experience. That is simply UNTRUE. Many of these women have not been given equal opportunities to work and advance at the same rate as their peers.

If you need research to follow my statement, then here is one example for you. In a 2022 report by McKinsey and LeanIn.org, researchers noted – for the 8th consecutive year – that women not being offered and/or being supported in entry-level supervisory roles is a major obstacle to overcoming the gender pay gap. This obstacle is knowing as the “broken rung.” This leads to less women available in the talent pipeline for senior leadership positions.

Second, a 16% pay gap could also happen as a result of women needing to move positions due to different family situations. Unfortunately, domestic labor and caregiving still tend to fall on women in the United States. That is patriarchy and capitalism working together. While this may be true, organizations and senior leaders often fault the oppressive systems creating this situation without addressing ways to close that gap with organizational practices. For instance, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has recognized caregiving for families and friends as a public health issue. With an aging baby boomer population and increasing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States caregiving system is not prepared to handle the volume of caregiving needs for the next decade. So, how does this impact women and the gender pay gap? Too often, women are staying home from work to care for people because the caregiving system is not equipped or even staffed enough to handle the current volume.

The caregiving system is understaffed and underpaid so the costs of formal services like childcare have increased significantly since 2019. Additionally, the number of formal service providers have decreased, especially in non-urban areas. Therefore, informal caregivers are filling the gaps by taking off work for extended periods of time and/or searching for remote and more asynchronous positions to ensure schedule flexibility. Women who have employment gaps are often – consciously or unconsciously – seen as “flight risks” for employment, so they are not offered the same amount of job opportunities. Therefore, these women fall behind in experience and financial stability through no fault of their own.

Finally, a 16% gender wage gap feels even more significant as we all experience an increased cost of living in the United States. Too many organizations prioritize cost of living as the least important in pay calculations when it really needs to be right behind compliance with wage laws. Let’s get to the point. For 2021, the average annual expenditure for all US consumers was $66,298. That’s how much the average American spends to live in a single year. Some will point out that this number includes a wide variety of living situations, and that is true. However, a 16% gender wage gap makes a difference.

Let’s compare a man and a woman living in the same city, working in the same job for the same company with the same qualifications, and experiencing the 16% gender pay gap. They live in Chicago, Illinois. The man makes $80,000 per year. The woman makes $67,200. Based on the details of the gender pay gap, the woman will make this wage if she is white with no dependents. The average cost of living for Chicago is $66,901 (based on 2021 data). So, the woman in this scenario is being paid in line with the cost of living while the man has some breathing room for additional living expenses. Of course, we don’t know their financial situations, such as student loan debt, health, age, etc. But you can get the point. A 16% gender pay gap makes a difference.

If you’ve read my posts before, then you know I have some action items for you. I don’t want to present a problem without some immediate actions for us to take. Here are some questions to assess your organization for gender pay gap bias, specifically for women:

·       How many women candidates are applying for your positions overall? How many for supervisory positions? How many for senior leadership positions?

·       How many women are filling your supervisory roles now? What is the average tenure of a woman in these positions? If the tenure varies greatly from men in the same roles (more than 15%), then what’s the difference?

·       How are you building an internal talent pipeline of female talent at your organization? Have you explored how to keep women in leadership roles and build opportunities for future advancement?

·       What are your female employees saying about their work experience? Does demographic information, such as race and/or ethnicity, create varied responses? If so, what’s happening to create these differences?

·       What kinds of organizational policies do you have now that support people in caregiver roles? What kinds of benefits do you offer now that support people in caregiver roles?

·       What is your hiring stance for candidates that have employment gaps in their resumes? How are hiring managers trained to address these?

·       What is the cost of living for the geographic locations of your employees? How is your organization addressing the rising costs of living?

·       How many of your employees are paid below the cost of living for their area? Have you explored if you have a higher turnover rate with those who are paid below the cost of living for their area?

Need some help with asking these questions in your organization and navigating the results? Loftis Partners is ready to help you. We offer organizational coaching and pay equity assessments.

Photo by That's Her Business on Unsplash