Women Expect Lower Pay
A newstudysuggests that women entering the workforce even with a higher education expect to receive less pay than men. The Canadian study involved researchers from Dalhousie University, Carleton University and the University of Guelph that compared the expectations of over twenty-three thousand university students.
The women in the study that covered 23,419 people showed women predicting that they would receive fourteen percent less than men predicted they would receive during their careers. After five years at the same job the difference in pay gets larger with women expecting that they will make eighteen percent less than men even with increased experience. Women also expect to see promotions at a slower rate than men.
The expectation to make less than men do can be attributed to the fact that women are entering the workforce with the same qualifications and earning a lower starting salary. The Canadian Labour Force Survery from 2008 showed that salaries for women were sixty-eight percent of the salary earned by male peers with the same qualifications. It was also suggested by researchers that men having a higher expectation of earnings might be accountable in part for the fact they earn more money than women in the same jobs.
The paper published for the study begins with the theory that an increasing number of women in fields that were previously dominated by men should cause an increase in equality. Women predict that after five years at a job they willearnup to eighteen percent less than their male counterparts; women also believe they will wait two months longer than men to receive a promotion regardless of the qualifications they hold.
The fact that woman expect to earn less than men could be causing them to take jobs that pay less. The fact that men expect more could have an effect on them getting more in the way of salaries and promotions. While the study found women’s expectations were low men’s expectations were too high.
Fields like engineering and science that are typically dominated by men have the largest difference in expectations for advancement and salary. Careers in art that are typically dominated by women showed that there was less of a gap between the salaries and advancement rates. The priorities were different for men and women as well with men focused more on career goals while women wanted to find a balance between all aspects of their lives.
