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WITH THE PASSAGE of “An Act to Establish Pay Equity,” young women entering the workforce in Massachusetts might figure that they are protected from the gender-based inequalities that have been documented in employment. We don’t see it that way.

That the law is well-intentioned is not the issue. For example, why should an employer expect to base your salary on what you earned in your previous job? Indeed, what right do they have to ask for such information? Thus, the law has some useful statutory provisions.

We have a different concern. Specifically, we worry that an unintended consequence of the law is that women will accept the job offers they receive without trying to negotiate what they deserve—salary and working conditions that might exceed those based on the minimum offered by the employer.

In short, we worry that the floor provided by the law will become the ceiling.

Over the last several years, we have conducted job offer negotiation workshops for graduating college students and young professionals all around the world.  What we find in our role-play exercises is what has been documented by Carnegie-Mellon’s Linda Babcock and others: The young women in our classes ask for—and accept–less than the young men, irrespective of their level of competence and experience.

The short version of what happens is that women tend to ask for a salary that is “fair,” while the men tend to ask for “the most they can get without appearing to be a jerk.”  There is a clear bimodal distribution in the aspirations of the two groups.  Also, we have noted that the women also are more likely to accept the employer’s first offer, while the men continue to negotiate.

We, therefore, spend a lot of our time helping those young women to develop strategies to overcome these tendencies.

But a job offer negotiation is also about more than the money. We like to explain that the conversation is part of the process of building the relationship that will characterize your engagement with the company for months and years to come.  So, non-money issues like work assignments, mentoring, professional development, and the like are important aspects of potential career advancement.  Young women can employ the discussion to enhance their value in the employer’s eye—even after the employer has decided to hire them—and acquire non-money attributes that might end up being even more important than the salary.

We like to teach that an effective negotiator in this situation can end up with a better deal overall (salary, working conditions, etc.) because she has helped the hiring manager understand the company’s own interests better.  It might seem to be too good to be true, but by melding one’s personal aspirations with the employer’s needs, you can get an employment package that is better for you and be held in higher regard by the employer.

Do women need the protection of legislation to get their fair share of both cash and non-cash job attributes? Babcock and others have documented that a woman asking for one thing is treated worse by hiring managers than a man asking for the same thing—even when the hiring manager is a female. So one could argue that the new law will protect against that adverse outcome.

We’ve found, though, that women who play to their strengths in a job offer negotiation—taking the time to engage relationally during the conversation as opposed to transactionally—actually do very well.  This should not be a case of haggling.  It should be a thoughtfully prepared conversation—both on the substance of the matters being discussed and the manner in which the interaction takes place.  After all, the company has already decided that you are their top candidate after devoting substantial time and resources to the search process, interviews, and the like.  The last thing they want is for you to join a competitor, or to reach down to their No. 2 choice. They really want to close the deal with you.

As a woman they have chosen, you have leverage.  Take solace from the existence of the new law, but don’t let it be your crutch.  You can do better.

Farzana Mohamed and Paul Levy are the authors of How to Negotiate Your First Job.  Levy is Senior Advisor at Lax Sebenius LLC, a negotiation training and advisory company.

One reply on “Pay equity law’s unintended consequences”

  1. I wholeheartedly agree! I’m not a huge fan of using legislation to fix things – it’s quite a blunt tool. While it is a good law (that is it removes the anchoring bias), your points are extremely important. Women need to negotiate. While I agree that negotiation can showcase what people can do on the job, this isn’t the case for women because women tend to negotiate quite well when negotiating for their companies. So an interview negotiation may not be an accurate indicator of a woman’s skill. In fact, when women are given permission, they tend to out-negotiate men.

    What would happen if employers laid out the negotiating factors and were transparent about the range? It could be like a car negotiation is now (and some car places are removing the negotiation altogether). What I’d also like to see is to taper down what men negotiate. Personally, I think the whole hiring process is far too nebulous – there’s research to suggest as well that interviewing is no better than randomly selecting people.

    But, the issue you raise about women not negotiating for themselves, in my view, comes down to what we identified in our research (The Orange Line: A Woman’s Guide to Integrating Career, Family, and Life https://www.amazon.com/Orange-Line-Womans-Integrating-Career/dp/0989207706) – women have been socialized to believe that they are inherently less worthy simply because they’re women. My view is that this fundamental assumption has to change or women won’t negotiate effectively.

    thank you for the article! Very important stuff!

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