“The earnings expectations are already drifting apart between males and females during student life,” says Pia Pinger from the EPoS Economic Research Center. “The comparatively modest expectations of female students largely correspond to the later earnings gap.”
Different approach in salary negotiations
While the pay gap is 14 percent at the start of a career, it rises to 27 percent at the age of 55. Over the entire working life, the gap in expectations amounts to more than 500,000 euros, according to the study. Women with lower salary expectations are less courageous in salary negotiations than their male colleagues and demand lower salaries. According to the study, this gap amounts to 19 percent. In addition, women set themselves a significantly lower minimum salary at which they are prepared to accept a job. The difference to men amounts to 18 percent.
Women anticipate unequal treatment
“Such differences in negotiation objectives between women and men explain around 15 percent of the gender pay gap,” says Pinger. “This makes them about as important as the choice of subject or profession.” The EPoS researcher notes that even several years after entering working life, a strong and significant correlation between pay demands and outcomes remains. Her advice to working women is therefore not to set the bar too low from the outset.
“Salary expectations that are too modest virtually anticipate your own unequal treatment,” says Pinger. “It is important that women find out about realistic earning prospects at the beginning of their careers if possible, so that they can enter into salary negotiations in a stronger position.”