Haggling: Babcock and Bowles

[differenceblog]

As discussed in April ( "Getting what you deserve", 4/13/07), men are repeatedly shown to negotiate for higher pay more often than women. Linda C. Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles think this isn't just about getting women to speak up: "This isn't about fixing the women... [women] are responding to incentives within the social environment." Bowles

Comments

[deadkytty9]

The choice of job probably has something to do with it too. It's hard to negotiate for more money if you know that your employer can turn around and replace you easily. I think stereotypical women's jobs are perceived as easier to fill (and more likely to be unskilled), even if this isn't necessarily the case, with the current nursing and teacher shortages.

[differenceblog]

*nods* that's a good point. Most of the research appears to be with recent MBA recipients, to control for job choice. The 2005 paper with McGinn suggests that even within MBA-type jobs, industry affects the level of negotiation uncertainty: "The high ambiguity industry categories (in order of increasing ambiguity) were telecommunications, other financial services (e.g., commercial banking, real-estate finance), health/human services, other manufacturing (e.g., agribusiness, industrial/transportation equipment), other services (e.g., computer services, transportation), advertising/marketing, retail and entertainment/media (percent of sample = .31; rating M = 4.50, Max = 5.33, Min = 3.33). The low ambiguity industry categories (in order of increasing ambiguity) were investment banking, consulting, consumer products, venture capital/private equity and high technology (percent of sample = .69; rating M = 6.20, Max = 6.67, Min = 5.67).

[ephraim_oakes]

ban all wage negotiations and work strictly by a point system like government jobs use, adjust regularly for inflation.

of course that has nothing to do with the gender inequity at the root of the problem, but it might fix the symptom.

[differenceblog]

Erk. I have a very strong, visceral reaction against a system like that, because it doesn't seem to leave any room for penalizing people who do piss-poor work, but I'm not sure my reaction is rational. I'll need to think about it.

[dawn_guy]

My current employer's pay scheme involves jobs being classified according to something like the Hay System, with some jobs falling across several categories depending on the incumbent's skill and responsibilities (complete with hatred of HR for taking months to reclassify people to a higher pay grade). Pay rises are annual, across the board, and linked to annual performance reviews.

It is institutionalized and sucks somewhat, but it does avoid the problem of good negotiators who are not particularly good workers getting a larger share of the pie than good workers who are not good negotiators.

[ephraim_oakes]

maybe not in the way that it's used in govn't jobs at the moment...but points could be denied to folks who get bad evaluations. i just think people should be rewarded for doing their job, not for their haggling skills (unless haggling skills are important for that particular job).