Gender pay gap in technology starts at hiring

Employers offer women 3% less than men for the same job roles, with some offering 30% less, according to data from more than 100,000 job offers analysed by Hired, a US firm of technology, sales, and marketing recruiters. In almost 70% of instances, men receive higher salary offers than women for the same job title at the same company, prompting Hired to comment:

‘It’s difficult to determine whether this is a symptom of unconscious gender bias in the hiring process or results from an ongoing cycle of women being underpaid, setting their salary expectations too low and ultimately receiving less in subsequent roles.’

The data on software engineer salaries suggests that small, seed stage companies have a lower gender pay gap than larger corporations and those in an advanced stage of their business development.

Hired said:

‘One explanation for this is smaller companies have more institutional transparency into the salaries of everyone on the team, which can ultimately negate possible gender pay disparities.’

It also finds that women set their expected salary at $14,000 lower per year than men on average in its online recruitment platform.

‘Women, work and the state of wage inequality’, Hired: https://hired.com/gender-wage-gap