BLOG: The gender wage gap is not new, but negotiating for what’s important can help
Significant disparities exist in pay, promotion and perks between the sexes in every field (not just in medicine), and this has been the case for centuries.
It’s unfair and it’s not right, but sadly that knowledge alone is not sufficient to change the status quo. Simply pointing out the disparities is very much analogous to the experiment in which Capuchin monkeys who, seeing their counterparts get grapes (the preferred payment for doing a task), throw the less favored cucumber back to investigators and rattle their cages. We can rail against the inequities, but what we truly need is a strategy to effect action.
So how do we do that? Some have advocated for greater transparency as a means to correct disparities. Certainly, some have found that transparent-structured compensation plans may reduce (but not eliminate) wage disparities. Others, however, have found that transparency alone does not mitigate inequities and may, in fact, exacerbate the feelings of discrimination that exist in the workplace.
And, as the COVID-19 pandemic taught us, it’s not all about the money. A recent report in the Harvard Business Review noted that more women physicians are either thinking of cutting back their clinical practice or leaving the workforce all together. Sure, pay inequities have something to do with that, but it’s also a reflection of some employers’ lack of flexibility for maternity leave, provision of child and elder care, and the myriad of other things that leave women feeling (to a greater degree than men) burned out and undervalued.
Although having programs that provide for paid leave, onsite day care facilities and flexibility in call schedules can help, it’s important to realize that these efforts will be more important to some women than to others. Indeed, there may not be a “one-size-fits-all” approach to ensuring women feel valued in the workplace.
What might be more effective — both for reducing pay inequities as well as for ensuring women feel valued — is if women simply negotiated for what was important to them. It is well known that “women don’t ask,” and that we tend not to advocate as strongly or as well for ourselves as we do for others. As such, some have advocated for negotiation training as one means to help reduce the inequities that exist. I know what you’re thinking: One more thing, as though women don’t have enough on their plate! And why should the onus be on women? These are fair points; however, in order to recognize the diversity within each gender, and the individual values each of us has, it behooves us to know how to negotiate effectively without being perceived as being overly demanding, greedy, belligerent or worse.
Many institutions and professional groups, including the Association of American Colleges, have included negotiation training in their leadership workshops — particularly for women. I have taught many of them over the last decade. They are in general universally well received as fun, energizing and motivating, but one wonders whether they truly make an impact. During the pandemic, when in-person workshops ceased to exist, the American Medical Association put out a call for applications for the Joan Giambalvo Award for the advancement of women. I was honored to receive that award and set about not only to create a virtual negotiations workshop but also to test its efficacy. To my complete surprise, our virtual negotiation training workshop resulted not only in improved knowledge and confidence in negotiation skills, but further actually resulted in improved outcomes! Women stated their knowledge and confidence in negotiation as a result of the workshop and, 3 months later, 40.7% of respondents stated they had used what they had learned: 57.7% had negotiated for pay, 41.7% for a promotion and 32% for job-related perks. These negotiations went “better than expected” in 26.6%, 30% and 37.5% of instances, respectively. Before the course, only three (2.9%) felt that their last negotiation went “very well” or better; 3 months after the course, 28% felt their last negotiation after the course went “very well” or “extremely well” (P = .002). To achieve such statistically significant results with a relatively small sample size blew my mind!
To be clear, closing the gender gap will require a multipronged approach, and I have no delusions that this will be easy or fast. But knowing that we can start to turn the flywheel by honing some basic negotiation skills gives me optimism for the future.
References:
- American Medical Association. Joan F. Giambalvo Fund for the Advancement of Women. https://www.ama-assn.org/about/awards/joan-f-giambalvo-fund-advancement-women. Accessed March 28, 2022.
- Babcock L and Laschever S. Women don’t ask: Negotiation and the gender divide. Princeton University Press; 2003.
- Chagpar A. Negotiation-101. https://negotiation-101.square.site/. Accessed March 28, 2022.
- Chagpar A. Negotiation workshop for women in medicine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFwl9Ekw5gU. Accessed March 28, 2022.
- Dudley J, et al. Why so many women physicians are quitting. Harv Bus Rev. https://hbr.org/2022/01/why-so-many-women-physicians-are-quitting. Published Jan. 19, 2022. Accessed March 28, 2022.
- Gulyas A, et al. ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 21-076. 2021;doi:10.2139/ssrn.3949832.
- Morris M, et al. Ann Surg. 2018;doi:10.1097/SLA.0000000000002928.
For more information:
Anees B. Chagpar, MD, MSc, MPH, MA, MBA, FRCS(C), FACS, is a professor in the department of surgery Yale University School of Medicine’s and a Healio’s Women in Oncology Peer Perspective Board Member. She can be reached at anees.chagpar@yale.edu.
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