Women: Overcome Your Self-Sabotage By Asking For 10 To 15% More

“Women’s lower pay expectations lead to lower earnings.”

We are our own worst enemies, according to a new study on the gender pay gap in the gig economy.  Using a gender-blind online work setting, Francesca Manzi and her co-authors discovered a covert source of gender inequality: differential pay expectations. (The study is titled “New Job Economies and Old Pay Gaps”.)

Women, we are the queens of self-sabotage. 

And this is not new news. A Washington Post column by Sharon Goldman “Why women are paid less in the gig economy” cites Brenda Major’s research in the ’80s and ’90s. Men and women were brought into a lab to do various tasks and then asked what pay they deserved. “Men tended to work less hard and take more money than women did,” according to Goldman. 

Let that sink in for a moment. 

Not to get all blame-the-victim here, but the good news is that we can solve the part that is in our control. We can ask for more money.

We need to shed the big internalized lies that we are worth less. We’re taught to put other people first, be modest, and grateful for what we can get.  It takes time to shift such a deeply ingrained mindset. In the meantime, here’s actionable advice based on hard data:

Tack on an extra 10 to 15% to your price tag. In the Manzi study that’s the discount women, no matter their demographics, age, or family status, consistently used to devalue their work.

Bransby, David, photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons