Are women paid less for IT jobs? 10

[Anniemn42]

Is it common to have women paid less in technical fields than men? What has your experience been?
While reviewing old files I found that the person I replaced was making more than I am now, two years later. He was fired for not meeting expectations. I have had two reviews with high marks in most categories, no items were less than satisfactory. In the time I've been with the company I installed two manufacturing wireless systems, a new POS, moved the network from frame relay to VPN, and managed to create management reporting tools. I have over 15 years experience in IT.

When asked what name to put on the new business card I replied: Goddess of Technology.

 

[chiph]

It's not right, but it is common practice.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[kHz]

There are so many factors that come into pay, that it is very difficult to answer. Most people look at it as $1 == $1, but it isn't that simple. For one example, what if a woman takes a year off after having a baby?

People want to look at everyting as black and white, but it isn't that simple.

 

[strongm]

>the person I replaced was making more than I am now

I know that our company, under new ownership, has deliberately used staff replacement as a method of reducing fixed cost. As someone leaves, they try to recruit a replacement at a lower salary. Doesn't matter whether the replacement is male or female. And it doesn't seem to matter if the replacement is better qualified than whoever is departing.

 

[Anniemn42]

My last baby was 19 years ago, lol - not a current consideration.

When asked what name to put on the new business card I replied: Goddess of Technology.

 

[KellyK]

I don't want to get on a feminist soapbox, but let's face it, women make less than men in almost all fields. I've heard women make 70 cents to a man's dollar.

Kelly

 

[kHz]

Studies. Anything can be done with numbers.

See my above comment about other factors at play.

I worked at a Fortune 350 company... pay was equal.

 

[kHz]

And if you want to bring up pay being unequal, then what about affirmative action? This makes a white male the minority. Is it fair that a white male who has a college education and works for a company for years gets passed by on promotion by a "minority" without the academic qualifications and maybe less time working for the company? All because the organization has to meet some quota?

Most of those studies are probably done asking question similar to this:

Gender: M___ F___
Occupation: _______________
Salary/Wage: ____________

Then they compile it and from those few questions say this/that/whatever. And if they do ask more information, such as, education, years in field, total years work experience, etc., then I would like to read the ENTIRE study and come to my own conclusion. But not by reading a snippet gathered by a reporter writing a story with (most likely) an objective.

 

[KellyK]

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_24/b3887065.htm

Kelly

 

[kHz]

But those few years out of the labor market carry a stiff penalty. More than half of all women spent at least a year out of the labor force

The fewer hours women work account for about half of the total pay gap between the sexes

The work world penalizes men nearly as much

[/quote]
Women also take a big hit for going part-time. On average, they work a lot less than men: 1,498 hours a year, vs. 2,219 worked by the typical man
[/quote]

historical patterns of sex segregation remain strong across much of the economy. Overall, just 15% of women work in jobs typically held by men, such as engineer, stockbroker, and judge, while fewer than 8% of men hold female-dominated jobs such as nurse, teacher, or sales clerk.

Outright discrimination against women probably accounts for only about 10 percentage points of the pay gap, according to numerous studies

A majority of men and women still work in largely sex-segregated occupations, Rose and Hartmann's study shows, leaving many women stuck in lower-paying jobs such as cashiers and maids.

This was not the complete study that I wanted to read but an article written by reporters. However, it generally supports what I was saying; factors make the greatest difference in pay.

This article also did not reference pay of a female programmer vs. a male programmer, both was a BS in Comp Sci and 10 years of work experience all in programming in the same languages. This was a female earns this, male earns this. Not accurate.

 

[MasterRacker]

It might not be gender related at all. Another factor to consider is the combined effects of the Dot-Bomb crash and the 9/11 crash.

Threr are plenty of tech firms and others whose pay scales have dropped, thus new hires make less for the same than those they replaced.


Jeff
The future is already here - it's just not widely distributed yet...

 

[langleymass]

I think men are paid more because they are generally more demading about these types of things. Women also seem to flock to low-paying jobs. For example, 80-90% of social workers are female.

 

[willir]

Anniemn42

Historically, women have made less than men, but the gap is getting smaller. Down the road, it eventually be non-existant. But as stated above, business always wants to get more bang for their buck.

And then there is biology. I am a guy, but found my self as a single parent. Basically, I put my career on hold for quite a while until my kids did not need daycare and were self-reliant. By putting my career on hold, I prioritized being a parent which affected performance. I still did an excellent job, but I had to turn down things I knew my boss would have preferred I had done. Since women historically to be the caregiver, this may impact on their performance in some situations.

And needless to say, taking time to have kids is finacially expensive to both the parent, but also expensive for the business -- train the person doing the back-fill for the woman on maternity leave, perhaps top-up maternity beneifits, and most likely (they better), keep the job openning for the woman on maternity leave.

But I happy to say that I have seen women get promoted over men based on qualifications. This is good news.

But I have to agree with MasterRacker. The current market is much leaner and tougher. Therefore, pay offerings and pay raises are smaller and less frequent.

ALSO, the best way to raise your pay is to get is your salary set high when hired. A simple look, hesitation, attitude change or comment when negotiating your salary can result in a signficant change in your salary. Say the initial offerring is $30k. A proper negotiation stragety results in you accepting $40k. That is $10k you no longer have to get though pay raises (2 to 4 years??).

And some pay raises are fairly automatic. This means that employees who have more tenure / worked longer may make more money just based on how long they worked for the company.

By the way, check the web for salary averages. In the US, one site is Salary.com

http://www.salary.com/home/layoutscripts/homl_display.asp

Monster.com (accessible for numerous countries) used to provide a similar service...

http://english.monster.ca/geo/siteselection.asp

...but the "feature" "earn what I deserve" does not seem to be working today.

Find out where you fit on the scale, and you may be able to use this as a negotiation tactic during your next performance review.

Good luck.

 

[Anniemn42]

Thanks for the viewpoints. I especially liked the links to the web sites regarding salary ranges. I used to work in a large company with over 500 store locations. Now I work in a small specialty market enterprise with 22 stores and two manufacturing plants. I miss the interaction with other IT people on staff (my staff is only 4 people instead of 300)so your feedback is great to hear.

When asked what name to put on the new business card I replied: Goddess of Technology.

 

[blutekhnd]

According to the 2004 Salary Survey in Certification Magazine, women earned 3.25 percent less in 2003 but in 2004 they earned $1000.00 more than the men. Of course there were only 21,822 respondents to the survey. They said that the margin of error was only +/- 1%.

 

[Dollie]

Most large companies have set pay scales that they will pay someone with specific experience and the time of experience. For example, a Level 1 DBA with 2 years experience will make less than a Level 3 DBA with 15 years experience. Sex and child bearing ability have no bearing in the decision as most of the time they are consulting positions where the resume does not even list the person's name.

And a bit OT... I've actually walked out of two different interviews where I was asked when I was planning to have a baby and if I planned to be a stay-at-home mom. I'm infertile, babies aren't a part of my future. I didn't want to have to explain that in an interview, and I should have never been asked about it. What was interesting was that one of the interviewers was a pregnant woman.

If women were paid on the same level as men, we'd probably see more and more men taking maternity leaves and becoming stay-at-home dads. Most dads keep working because they are the primary income for the household. If that were to happen, we wouldn't see all these studies about how women don't work as hard, work as much, do as much, etc. just because they have ovaries.

Sorry for the mini-rant, but this is a very thorny issue for me.

 

[Anniemn42]

Thanks Dollie. It was frustrating to find that I have 12 years more experience, a proven track record with the company, and more certifications but still was paid less than the man fired from my position at this company. It's not a situation that can be "fixed" but I wanted to know if it was a common practice. From the notes people have posted it seems to vary from company to company.

When asked what name to put on the new business card I replied: Goddess of Technology.

 

[Onyxpurr]

I totally agree with what one person said about this topic, it may be because men are more aggressive in asking for more money.

Women don't typically speak up, however I do have a female friend who does speak up and she gets paid more than her male counterparts.

Plus I saw a study on this in a magazine.

 

[amillia]

I may have a male alias but I am actually female. I have found where I work, salary is based more on how demanding you are male or female. I have a female friend making an extremely large salary for the area and it is not necessarily because she is well qualified she just expects it. She has alot of confidence and sells herself well.

 

[LesleyW]

Plus I saw a study on this in a magazine.

Oh, so that proves it then.

Just teasing, Onyx