Tackling The Gender Pay Gap: How To Create Inside-Out Change

On average, American women earn only 82% of what men earn. If men stopped working on November 14 each year, they would earn the same amount as women, who have to work till the end of the year.

These stats are taken from the comedy panel show The Fix, in which two teams of comedians must come up with a fix for global issues. The stats are offered in their "Let’s Fix the Gender Pay Gap" episode, and they are — despite being on a comedy show — sad.

However, the pay gap is just the tip of the iceberg. The bigger question is: What is happening behind the scenes?

Not A 'Glass Ceiling' — It’s The 'Broken Rung'

There are multiple and complex reasons for the gender pay gap, but here are some of the obvious causes:

• There’s always been a lot of talk about a "glass ceiling" — barriers to women progressing to more senior roles where pay bands are significantly higher. A recent McKinsey study conducted with Lean In has identified a phenomenon called the "broken rung" — in reality, women face a bottleneck much earlier in their career: their first managerial role. Essentially, not enough women advance to their first managerial role; and from there onward, the number continues to decline, leaving just a very few women at the top.

• Career progression is often impacted by having children. Laura Tyson, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley explains, “There's evidence of a wage penalty for motherhood: all else being equal, there is a negative relationship between a woman’s wage and the number of children she has. According to OECD data, the motherhood penalty amounts to about a 7% wage reduction per child. There is also some evidence of a fatherhood premium: a positive relationship between a man’s wage and the number of children he has.”

 For various reasons, sometimes including taking care of family, women opt for part-time work more often than men, which hinders their progression as they both earn less and are perceived as not being in fast-track careers; therefore, organizations rarely invest in their training and development.

• Closely linked to this is the amount of "unpaid work" women do at home. There may be a shift toward men taking on more home responsibilities, but the gap is still wide.

• Stereotyping, bias and discrimination are still rife.

• Women still disproportionately make up some of the lowest-paid jobs, and at the same time, there is still a conspicuous under-representation of women in engineering, science, tech and especially in politics and government — where women could advocate for and enforce positive change.

• As I work with both women and men, I often see internal psychological barriers to career progression and better pay for women. As we grow up, we are all subject to external influences — what we keep hearing becomes part of our subconscious mind, and in my coaching experience, women more often than men tend to internalize lack of confidence, assertiveness and resilience. As a coach, I challenge their beliefs and show them a way out of perceived limitations. This can be a tipping point where external conditioning and circumstances recede in front of a changed internal belief. Powerfully projected outward, it creates a shift in our immediate surroundings.

A Forbes article earlier this year posed the important question of why we have fewer women in managerial and leadership positions when, in fact, they are better equipped to be leaders. The article also stated that women outperform men in educational environments, and, according to the U.N., “women are more likely to lead democratically, show transformational leadership, be a role model, listen to others and develop their subordinates’ potential, and score higher on measures of leadership effectiveness.”

How Can We Fix It?

There are multiple ways of approaching a problem, but two stand out: systemic/organizational and individual/personal responsibility. While a systemic approach is necessary, the change occurs in the beliefs, thoughts and behaviors of individuals who make up these organizations. Therefore, inside-out change is what’s acutely needed, with an external systemic change being rooted in it, rather than being an imposed practice. Pay equity audits are one way of monitoring and reducing the pay gap that more and more organizations are adopting.

Inside-Out Change: Creating A Compassionate Workplace

Challenging bias means not only challenging the system but challenging our own place within it, our own indoctrinated beliefs. Compassionate and inclusive mindsets cannot simply be taught; we need to do the work ourselves and implement best practices all around us — especially so if we are in a position of power and/or privilege.

Trying to change behaviors and attitudes without challenging and changing underlying thoughts and belief systems is futile. I suggest the following steps to start dealing with our biases:

1. Cultivate awareness around your thought process and decision-making process.

2. Challenge your choices and decisions. Ask yourself, "Why have I made this decision?"

3. Check for bias. "Am I taking the easiest route? Is this what I have always done?"

4. Ask, "How do I know my choices are rooted in fairness and equity, not personal preference?"

5. Ask, "Is my focus on serving the higher-end goal or protecting myself?"

We still have a long way to go. However, there is a growing movement in the right direction, with the likes of Black Rock and Accenture being recognized as leading the way with diversity and inclusion practices and companies like Citi championing transparency when it comes to adjusted and unadjusted pay gaps.

On the individual level, it is our personal responsibility to challenge ourselves and therefore grow as individuals and professionals. Cultivating open-mindedness and empathetic leadership and creating a workplace culture where everyone is supported to be the best they can be will lead to happier and more productive employees, closing the pay gap, better outcomes and higher revenues.

This article was originally published by #Forbes Coaches Council in October 2021 and is reproduced according to their guidelines.