Young, female and working in tech? You're likely to be earning a lot less than your male colleagues
An employee works on a laptop. Image: REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach
The pay gap may close with age, but women entering the tech workforce are finding themselves being paid way less than their male counterparts, a new survey by Comparably shows.
The salary comparison website surveyed more than 10,000 tech employees to see how median salaries break down across gender and age - although it doesn't take into account things like location, department, or experience levels.
Comparably's data showed that the gender pay gap - where women are paid less than their male peers - is largest between workers ages 18-25, the age when most people start entering the work force. The average female tech worker only makes $66,000 while the male makes an average of $85,000, a 29% difference between median salaries.
The good news is that the gender pay gap does apparently shrink from there, at least until women enter their late 30s and early 40s.
Comparably's CEO Jason Nazar could only speculate, but thought the difference in pay at that age could be attributed to women re-entering the workforce after raising children, attributing to the lower initial salaries. By the time they are in their 50s, the pay gap between men and women in tech shrinks back down to 5%.
Here's what it looks like:
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
Future of Work
Related topics:
The Agenda Weekly
A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda
You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. For more details, review our privacy policy.