The gender pay gap myth: women *do* negotiate for more money

The belief that women don’t negotiate for higher pay is outdated, according to a new study.

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US researchers have found that professional women negotiate their salaries more frequently than men - and are also more likely to get turned down for pay rises. After analysing a survey of students graduating from a top MBA programme between 2015 to 2019, they found that 54% of women reported negotiating their job offers compared with just 44% of men.

What else did the study find?

The analysis, published in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries, found that not only does the gender pay gap persist, but it actually tends to be larger for women who gain advanced business skills.

And while this recent study looked at the US job market, the same trend can also be observed in the UK. A University of Kent study from earlier this year concluded that the UK gender pay gap for higher-educated parents has actually grown since the 1970s.

So is it salary negotiation still worth it? 

It most definitely is, according to the study’s authors. They confirmed that despite the persistent gender pay gap, those who request more money are indeed more likely to get it than those who don’t ask - and there’s plenty of advice out there for women looking to negotiate a salary bump.

But the study’s co-author, Prof Laura Kray from Berkeley Haas School of Business, said the findings demonstrate the need to stop putting the onus on women to negotiate better and instead fix what is a “discriminatory system”.

“Negotiating for pay or promotions is clearly beneficial, and given that negotiation rates are pretty low, there is a lot of room for everyone to do more negotiating,” she said. “But it’s time to end the notion that the pay gap occurs because women don’t ask.”