Gender Pay Gap: A Cross-Sectional Study of the Effect of Workplace Entitlement on Pay Differences.
The gender pay gap ratio for some countries is shrinking but is still far from parity. For example, in Canada, the ratio is approximately 0.87 according to Statistics Canada, which means that females earn $0.87 for every dollar that males earn. While Canada ranked highly in gender equality in the global gender gap report from the World Economic Forum, the report also indicated that the pay gap will take up to 217-years to close. Scholars studying the underlying reasons for the pay gap, besides gender discrimination, have focused on factors such as educational background or occupational differences.
For example, Summers reported that women tolerate being underpaid more than men. The
aim of the current study is to investigate the relationship between the gender pay gap and the personality trait of employee entitlement. In particular, do men score higher on employee entitlement than do women, and if so, does employee entitlement correlate with higher estimates of starting salaries? If men have higher employee entitlement and expect a higher salary when beginning their career, these expectations may influence the gender pay gap by influencing factors such as bargaining for a higher starting salary at the beginning of their career.
Brenner and Bertsch reported sex differences with respect to merit pay. Specifically, men who were assertive preferred merit pay but assertive women preferred seniority-based pay. This difference in salary expectation helps to illustrate the joint influence of gender and personality traits, such as assertiveness. In general, past results have shown that the very existence of the gender pay gap may be because of social norms and the deeply rooted gender bias in society.
Soc Behav Res Pract Open J. 2019; 4(1): 15-20. doi: 10.17140/SBRPOJ-4-116