People Recommend Lower Pay for Women-Dominated Jobs, Study Finds
People Recommend Lower Pay for Women-Dominated Jobs, Study Finds
Researchers changed one detail about a job—then pay expectations fell
Even identical roles drew smaller salary estimates as more women filled them, hinting at a hidden bias shared by all.
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that people recommended lower salaries for the exact same occupation when it was presented as being made up of mostly women rather than mostly men.
"Women still earn 85 cents for every dollar men earn," said Catherine Taylor, an associate professor of sociology at UC Santa Barbara and lead author of the study. While some of that gap is linked to women working in lower-paying occupations, Taylor said her team's research asked a different question: Are some occupations paid less because women are in them?