Articles for By The Numbers

A Lifetime of Inequality Can Start With the Very First Paycheck

Every paycheck you receive during your career, with a few exceptions, will build on that first paycheck. Every salary increase. Every bonus. Even matching retirement contributions. Since most employers use percentages to calculate all of the above, that first paycheck can be the start of something big. Except for women, it’s usually the start of something less. 

Women and Salary Negotiations

Negotiation: the fact that men do and women don’t is one of the reasons used to explain the gender pay gap and was the subject of the best selling book by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, Women Don’t Ask, in 2007. The book and its related research spawned thousands of workshops and classes aimed at teaching women to negotiate their salaries and close the gap. 

In spite of these efforts, the gender pay gap persist.

The Upside of Ticking a Box

Another day, another article finding fault with efforts to encourage greater diversity on boards and in the workplace. This recent one, The problem with diversity targets in the workplace trots out the same old excuse - that targets, quotas, or requirements reduce diversity initiatives to ticking the box to fulfill the requirement. And we all know what that means: unqualified diversity hires. (Cue the scary music.)

Because Board Diversity Isn't Enough

The 2019 proxy season is nearing its end, and gender diversity on boards is in the news. Companies are welcoming the media attention that comes their way thanks to nonprofit organizations and activist shareholder groups who advocate to increase the number of serving on corporate boards, but many of these same organizations fail miserably at gender equality inside the organization. Here are just a few I’ve run across recently.

Advancing to the C-Suite: The Most Damning Number

There’s only one demographic group whose representation increases as they climb the corporate ladder: white men.