Ask for More. 30.4% More.

By Amanda Steinberg on Wednesday June 10, 2009
This post is about earning, gender studies

It's time to ask for more money.

According to a study released by the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), women don't make 77 cents to every man's dollar. We make 69.6 cents. The study controls for the fact that women have less time in paid work than men. Turns out - “Hour per hour, including only those women and men with the strongest [career] attachment who had earnings every single year, in this [15-year] study women still earn only 69.6 cents of each dollar earned per hour by men (see Table 1).”


While the report continues to hypothesize about why we make less, we're not so concerned with why. We're more interested in what we need to do it about it. Next time you're negotiating a contract, do us all a favor -- add 30.4%.

Download the report in PDF here:

Still A Man's Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap A Report on the Wage Gap and its Implications for Women, Families, and the Labor Market
by Stephen J. Rose, Rose Economic Consulting, and Heidi Hartmann, Institute for Women's Policy Research (2004)

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written by Kenia , January 14, 2010
I believe it's absolutely true, given the data, that women earn 69.6 cents on the dollar, but I believe this study does not take occupational positions into account. Obviously there are more high-earning male CEO's than women, and there are more lower-earning female teachers than men. But I must point out that a teaching job is a highly respectable occupation, and the lower salary does not make it any less valuable. I believe the reason for our earning less than men, is that we tend to CHOOSE jobs that earn less (we tend to want more work/life balance than men, and it's hard to get that in a high-paid executive position). I am wondering if what we need to DO (in addition to ASKING for more pay), is to go after the higher-paying jobs! Not too many do. Granted, of course, discrimination means women applicants are many times overlooked for some of those high-paying positions, but if we had a higher quantity of women going after those positions, it would increase our chances and eventually, over time, flood those positions with more women.
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written by Kat , January 16, 2010
I always get frustrated when I see these studies. Kenia is absolutely right--occupation isn't taken into consideration. Walk into a college engineering class and count how many women you see. There won't be many. The numbers I've seen in industry are ~10 - 20%, depending on the engineering discipline. Women tend to work in lower paying career fields. That doesn't mean that women are paid less for the same work. In fact, in the engineering world, women often are paid more because they are so hard to find and retail.
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written by Kat , January 16, 2010
I meant "retain" not "retail", sorry.
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written by Mary , February 20, 2010
isn't the real question: why are the "lower paying career fields" the ones that are predominately filled by women? Why don't those career fields have higher salaries? You say, "But I must point out that a teaching job is a highly respectable occupation, and the lower salary does not make it any less valuable." If it is not "any less valuable", why aren't the salaries raised?
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