Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-29-2020

Abstract

That women are paid less than male colleagues is a stubborn fact in the U.S. workplace.

As of July, women earned 84 cents for every dollar a man earned. It is a discrepancy that has garnered significant attention from scholars, the media and sex discrimination lawsuits.

But this figure only tells part of the story regarding gender pay inequality.

As a professor of business management, I have long studied compensation and inequality and know that base pay is only one way that women are disadvantaged in the workplace. Recent research by myself and colleagues shines a light on how female employees – particularly in the tech industries – likewise lose out when it comes to other forms of pay that receive far less attention: equity-based awards.

These are stock grants, in which employees are offered shares in the firm as a form of pay, and stock option grants that offer the right to buy company stock at a preset price in the future. The value of both are tied to the employing organization’s market price.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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