Female managers are not only under-represented in technology companies, they’re also paid significantly less than men. In the Bay Area, they’re paid $172,585 per year, 10 percent less than men. In Seattle, female managers are paid an average of $158,858 per year, also 10 percent less than men. That pattern is similar across tech companies in Los Angeles, Boston and New York City, according to an analysis of 6.5 million employee profiles in 483 companies by salary-data firm Paysa.
Women leaders were in the minority in all industries surveyed. Male leaders made up between 84 percent and 88 percent in aerospace, automobile, transportation, electronics and manufacturing companies. The pharmaceutical, food and beverage, insurance, education, health and real-estate industries accounted for the highest percentage of women leaders, but they were still in the minority, accounting for between 28 percent and 35 percent of management positions, it concluded.
Tech companies have the same lack of female representation in senior jobs as labor-intensive fields traditionally composed primarily of male workers, the report found. “For instance, less than 15 percent of these positions were held by women in the machinery, military, aerospace, and automotive industries. Even in some industries without overtly masculine cultures, such as communications, men possessed the overwhelming majority of tech and leadership jobs.”
With a median annual salary of $272,354 for female leaders, Netflix topped the list among tech companies, followed by Uber ($269,466), Facebook ($246,841), Microsoft ($237,771), LinkedIn ($217,359) and Google ($201,582). Fewer than 20 percent of leadership positions were held by women at four of the top 15 firms. The companies did not respond to requests for comment.
However, the gender wage gap for women of color continues to indicate a marked earnings inequality for Hispanic and black women, according to the Census Bureau. For every dollar earned by a white man, Hispanic women earned 54 cents and black women earned 63 cents in 2015. Black women’s earnings increased by 9 percent to $36,212 per year from $33,225 per year, compared with rises of 4.3 percent for Asian women, 2.6 percent for Hispanic women, and 2.8 percent for Caucasian women.
Across all professions — both tech and non-tech — female personal financial advisers make little more than half (56.4 percent) of men in the same job, compared with 83 percent overall, according to a recent analysis by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Critically, that does not account for women who are missing from senior roles in Silicon Valley and, instead, compares men and women who are in similar jobs.