INSEAD

Now, Women Do Ask: A Call to Update Beliefs About the Gender Pay Gap

The NCMC webinar featured Professor Laura Craig examining whether the long‑standing belief that women earn less because they negotiate less still holds. She contrasted the United States’ 83% gender‑pay ratio with the United Kingdom’s 97% after a 2017 transparency law, highlighting how legislation can shrink gaps. Craig reviewed multiple explanations: vertical segregation, supply‑side factors such as education and job sorting, and demand‑side biases like non‑promotable task assignments. She then turned to the core hypothesis—women’s lower negotiation propensity—citing meta‑analyses that find gender differences only among negotiation novices or in ambiguous contexts, not among seasoned professionals. A striking quote from a seminal book claimed women “don’t ask” for raises or promotions. Craig’s own data, along with MBA panel studies and large‑scale surveys, show women actually ask as often as men, yet they report lower success rates, especially at senior levels where the pay gap is widest. Australian research reinforces this pattern: equal ask rates but higher rejection for women. The findings suggest that focusing solely on negotiation training misdiagnoses the problem. Organizations should address structural biases, clarify negotiation norms, and redesign promotion criteria to eliminate the hidden barriers that keep women’s compensation trailing despite comparable negotiation behavior.