Glassdoor reveals why women aren’t asking for pay raises

Women aren’t getting the credit — or the pay — they deserve during COVID.

Seventy-three percent of women have not asked for a pay raise during the COVID-19 pandemic, compared to 58% of employed men, according to a survey by Glassdoor. In the coming months, less than half of employed women plan to ask for a pay raise, bonus or cost-of-living increase in the next year.

“This trend is a continuation of what we were seeing before the pandemic,” says Alison Sullivan, career expert at Glassdoor. “In a pandemic, an uncertain economy or job market leads to [women] putting off pay conversations because they don’t want to rock the boat.”

When going through the recruiting process, 33% of women say they accepted their salary for their most recent position without negotiating, compared to 29% for male employees. Unchecked, this trend leads to women making $900,000 less than their male counterparts over the course of their careers, potentially stunting their ability to succeed professionally and financially long-term.

Read more: Men are in the dark about pay equality

The pay gap has been a long-standing global issue. Efforts to close the gap have progressed slowly — at the current rate, it will take 250 years for women and men to receive equal pay, according to the United Nations. But with a quarter of employees seeing a significant decrease in pay during the COVID-19 pandemic, Glassdoor experts anticipate the worst.

“Before the pandemic, Glassdoor economists looked at the gender pay gap and saw that there was a 21.4% gap between what men and women earned,” Sullivan says. “Because of the pandemic, we don't quite know what that looks like yet but the early takeaways from this study are worrisome.”

The total number of women who left the workforce rose to over 2 million in March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those women, the majority are mothers and women of color — LatinX women under the age of 20 have nearly doubled their pre-pandemic unemployment rates at 8.8%, according to the National Women’s Law Center. Close behind are Black and Asian women at 8.5% and 7.9%, respectively.To compare, 1.8 million men have left the labor force since February 2020.

Shrinking the pay gap isn’t the only thing companies could be doing to better compensate their female employee base, according to Sullivan. Finding ways to cater to their other needs is a good first step.

Read more: How PwC is helping working mothers get through COVID

The leading causes behind the mass exodus of women in the workforce are insufficient caregiving options, deteriorating mental health and a lack of a sustainable work/life balance. Companies like PwC and Salary.com have tried to bridge the divide by offering paid sabbatical leaves and developing new tools to help employers identify pay disparities.

Women can also practice asking for more money and know when to identify the right opportunities, according to Glassdoor. But conversations about pay aren’t a one-way street.

“Pay can feel very taboo for a worker to bring up or to discuss with their coworkers,” Sullivan says. “A role that employers can play is cultivating a culture that embraces talking to you about pay and making sure they're talking to managers and training them on how to have productive conversations with employees.”

While 74% of women believe there is a gender pay gap, 73% of men believe that both genders are paid equally, according to a study by job searching platform Monster. While women should feel empowered to begin a dialogue, employers should prioritize cultivating a culture that embraces talking about pay at an executive level.

“Not talking about pay can have an outsized effect on the potential of [a woman’s] career,” Sullivan says. “Being able to converse about pay and being confident in bringing it up now and throughout their career is really critical.”