When it comes to equal pay, we still have a long way to go. Boston is among the worst cities in the U.S. when it comes to gender parity in wages.
So says a new report by San Francisco-based job site and research firm Hired.
According to the report, women tend to ask for raises less frequently than men do—and 65 percent of the time, when applying to the same job at the same company, they'll will ask for a lower salary than men. That translates to a national average of a 3 percent wage gap in the salaries offered to men and women.
In Boston, the gap is more pronounced: There is an 8 percent gap between salaries by gender. Boston is second only to New York City, which has a 10 percent gap.
There's a key caveat, however. Even those women who did approach their manager to have a salary discussion were less likely to get a pay increase than their male counterparts. Fifty-seven percent of men received a pay increase as opposed to 50 percent of women, while women were more likely to receive improved job titles, benefits, bonuses and stock options.
"Looking back to our first report in 2017, and then again in 2018, men were offered higher salaries than women 63 percent of the time," the report's authors wrote. "Last year, we saw our first glimmer of hope that this gap had narrowed to 60 percent, but this year’s data showed a disappointing return to the status quo: 63 percent."
One other fact will have to change if we are to see progress: lack of representation in the interview process. Hired's 2020 report shows that companies are interviewing only men for open positions 41 percent of the time and only women 4 percent of the time, a figure almost unchanged over the past three years.
It's also worth noting that plenty of women of color are facing two sets of discrimination. A report from the Boston Women's Workforce Council in December found that Latina women in Greater Boston earned just 45 cents for every dollar white men earn, while black women earned just 49 cents.
The Boston Women's Workforce Council is, in fact, one of Boston's initiatives designed to address the gender wage gap. Launched in 2013, it's a public-private partnership between the mayor’s office and the Greater Boston business community. The council's flagship program is the 100% Talent Compact, which more than 250 Boston-area employers have signed to pledge to close the gender wage gap in the city.
On the state level, Massachusetts finally enacted its statewide equal pay act in July 2018.
Still, the effects of these changes remain to be seen. According to Hired analysis, Boston's wage gap in both 2019 and 2018 was 9 percent, only one point higher than this year's 8 percent.
"Until we achieve pay parity, our work will continue," Hired CEO Mehul Patel wrote in the report.
