It surprises many that women still earn an estimated 20 percent less than men, on average. How come? Is it bias? Or are other factors at work? According to a new study, other factors are in play.
Does the gender gap happen in the job market? Two researchers, Wharton Professors Matthew Bidwell and Roxana Barbulescu at McGill University in Montreal, focused on applicants’ choices during their job searches. Their research subjects were 1,255 men and women entering the job market after graduating from a large, elite, 1-year international MBA program.
A rarified atmosphere, you say? Perhaps, but Bidwell and Barbulescu focused on the industries and kinds of jobs that generate the highest salaries, looking for the ways in which men and women either sorted themselves out or were sorted out by recruiters. Note that the gender pay gap in the highest-paying jobs exerts a disproportionate influence on the average pay gap all the way down the line.
Two industries Bidwell and Barbulescu set their sights on were such Wall Street-type finance jobs as investment banking and consulting—both sources of very high salaries.
The researchers surveyed students about their job interests before the MBA program and then afterward, to find out what kinds of jobs they applied for, where they got offers, and what jobs they ultimately accepted.
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Equally Likely … When They Apply
They found that women were significantly less likely to apply for investment banking spots and somewhat less likely to choose consulting jobs than men were. Interestingly, when women did apply for investment banking jobs, they were just as likely to get them as the men who applied.
Take a closer look at motivations. Bidwell and Barbulescu delved deeper, breaking down influences on job search decisions into three different factors:
- applicants’ preferences for specific rewards from their jobs, such as money or flexibility;
- applicants’ ability to identify with particular kinds of jobs, which tends to be tied to how applicants see themselves; and
- applicants’ expectations of whether an application could succeed.
One important aspect of the search is what the researchers refer to as “expected work/life satisfaction,” a factor they tested against 19 different job types. That turned out to be decisive in their findings: Women were significantly less likely than men to apply for jobs in which work/life satisfaction was seen as low.
Said Bidwell, “This explained why women weren’t applying for consulting jobs. The hours are not that much worse than investment banking jobs, but the expectation is that you will be staying in a hotel 4 nights a week.”
Apparently, men are more willing to trade that drawback for big bucks than are women—or at least that’s what the researchers speculate.
They noted that business practices that reduce conflicts between work and family demands could even this out. However, “workplaces with fewer women face less pressure to adapt their working styles to accommodate family demands,” so gender segregation becomes self-perpetuating.
Further, the researchers found, women identified the least with stereotypically masculine jobs, such as investment banking, a reputedly macho culture. From before their MBA program began to after they’d ended, Bidwell and Barbulescu found that women and men showed similar levels of confidence about job offers in most fields—except investment banking.
Bidwell and Barbulescu found that women are more likely to apply for jobs in what they describe as “general management,” including positions in internal finance and marketing. And, on average, people in investment banking and hedge funds for at least 10 or 15 years were making two to three times as much as those in general management.
So, are the differences between men and women genetic? Or do they lie in the differences between how boys and girls are socialized—by their parents, schools, and society at large? Even if they’re a mixture, will they change? How fast?
We clearly don’t know the answers yet. Bidwell and Barbulescu’s study, “Do Women Choose Different Jobs from Men? Mechanisms of Application Segregation in the Market for Managerial Workers,” will appear in the journal Organization Science.
What’s the gender pay gap at your organization like? Anyone a victim of gender pay discrimination? Use the comment link or email me at sbruce@blr.com.
What about the pay gap between men and women holding the same position, such as happend to Lily Ledbetter? It’s not just a matter of women not seeking out the highest paying jobs–those who do often still make less than their male counterparts.
I agree with Barb. This article, based on the title, should be about the pay gap between men and women holding the same position. Why women may choose different types of jobs than men doesn’t explain the pay gap, as this article seems to be trying to suggest.
I agree with Barb. This article does not address the real problem of the pay gap between men and women holding the same position.
You didn’t answer your own POV except for your banking example. All the rest relates to the types of men/women tend to gravitate towards. Do an apples-to-apples comparison by industry and you’ll provide a greater service – and, answer your own headline.
As for me, I once experienced a 40% pay increase and it wasn’t even time for my review – because someone was checking out my company/complained to someone. Most recently, I worked for a privately held company, who in this day and age, the entrepreneur/owner feels women “don’t need” as much money as men?
Good luck to you.
You can find individual examples like this all the time, but the narrative that women take home less pay on average because of discrimination is baloney. Every legitimate study shows the following: “Once you adjust for occupational choice, education, experience, work flexibility, and other legitimate factors that affect pay, the gender gap essentially disappears.”
The Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the 1991 amendments to Civil Rights Act cover “real” gender discrimination. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is feel good, but bad legislation.
And in regards to the sained Lilly Ledbetter, she knew of the pay descrepency for years, but did nothing about it.
My company went through a merger several years ago. The new owners consistently hire women for their Accounting Dept and pays them less than Market rate. The only men they hire are all under 30 and just starting in the Finance field. They do the same with their IT Staff.
I disagree totally, and if there is any disparity or discrimination, it’s happening to men. In my 20 years within manufacturing and federal government work experience, I have seen discrimination perpetrated by upper management women towards men and women who are in hourly production jobs and careered positions, such as HR and environmental health and safety. I have personally experienced this as an EHS mgr. when the job requires physical work, that the women in the same position just flat out won’t do the same task even though the position requires it, they stand back and let the men do things at their discretion, and when convenient, claim discrimination when competing for promotions. I have seen women chosen for HR positions then turn around and suppress the advancement of other women and also verbally abuse them and create an environment of intimidation towards women.
I have concluded that it is power hungry women who, once they achieve upper management positions are suppressing other women. God help the male who crosses their path or especially any women who expresses that their first priority and goal in life is to be a devoted mother and wife before their “Career”, they will go nowhere.
I have personally witnessed an HR hell on heals, verbally berate an innocent secretary, in front of the entire office of co-workers and reduce her to tears. This HR proclaimed to all that there is no other Bit—-, greater than her. I know not all by no means, are like this person at all. But to assert women are still under paid for the same careered positions is absurd. In the HR field and my field of environmental health and safety, women are taking over and selected over men and paid more.
Just one guys experience in life, I’ve been to hell and back just surviving in industry.
I work in banking, and I have a couple of other observations. Men wear business suits to work. But will women in equal positions will wear a dress with no hose and flip-flops. Or they’ll wear stretch pants and a t-shirt with a sweater. While they male counterparts are in white shirts and ties. I was always taught that you should dress for the role that you want in business. I think women could take a lesson from that.
I agree with Barb and several others submitting comments. This article seems so obtuse… missing the larger, more salient and troubling point about women being paid less than men in the same positions.
C’mon Steve. You so miss the mark between your title and your article that it smells a bit like link bait to me.
The only woman that are paid less than men are the ones that accept less. No one holds a gun to your head and makes you accept less. Men are more likeley to stick to there guns and negotiate harder for more money.