STUBBORN NUMBERS FROM STYMIED MINDS:
The Gender Pay Gap is Sustained by a Traditional Outlook
THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: from Diversity in the News, Winter 2009
Here it is 2009, and after decades of advocacy and commitment by many to change, the gender gap in attorney (and other professional) compensation is still open wide. As Tresa Baldas wrote recently in the National Law Journal, “the gender pay gap has always been a sore subject bubbling near the surface of law firms across the nation. Now it has bubbled over the top."
One reason it’s bubbling over is the recently released NALP research showing that in 2007, female first-year associates earned 89% of their male counterparts, and that the gender wage gap appears to widen as an attorney advances through a career. In a separate gathering of statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2007 women attorneys at all stages earned only 78% of their male counterparts. Why can’t we get a grip on the causes of this disparity, and close the gap?
As many an advocate for gender equity would tell you, it’s because the gap is sustained not by set policies, but by hard to grasp, subtle aspects of law firm life. Lauren Stiller Rickleen, who interviewed many law firm attorneys on this topic for her recent book, put it this way: “Most [law firm] compensation systems feel inherently biased to the women interviewed.”
More Than a Feeling
What’s really behind the “feel” that law firm compensation is unfair to women, given that the point-to-it policies don’t say, In this firm we pay the ladies less? Some argue that the “old boy’s network” is to blame. Others site billable hour and case assignment systems that leave women out. Still others single out barriers women face getting billing credit for matters once they’ve made partner. And some say the problem is rooted in women’s behavior and choices, such as a disinclination to negotiate hard for compensation or the facts of child-bearing and family responsibilities. Meanwhile, law firms say that they work hard to ensure processes are equitable in every way they can. Still the gap persists. Still the root causes seem speculative, murky, and hard to address.
Comes now a study that helps explain why women lawyers can “feel” rather than point to the bias. Published in the September, 2008 issue of the Journal of American Psychology, the study, Is the Gap More than Gender? A Longitudinal Analysis of Gender, Gender Role Orientation, establishes that the feel—the bias—is in fact connected to hard, cold cash. The study contrasts “traditional” and “egalitarian” orientations in the workplace, and it clearly shows that there is a connection between how professionals look at gender roles, and their actual earnings in the professional workplace.
The study found that a man’s traditionalist attitude towards gender roles is strongly associated with higher earnings. In other words, men who hone to a traditional orientation (basically, that men are better suited to the public world of the workplace, and women are better suited to the private world of family life) earn more than men whose orientation is egalitarian (meaning less divided along gender lines in general). For women, the opposite outlook seems to make for greater earning power. Women with an egalitarian orientation—and one might expect women law firm attorneys to have an egalitarian orientation—are likely to earn a little more than women with a traditionalist attitude. So in crass terms, men who think traditional earn more, and women who think traditional earn less. Oh-oh, there’s a disconnect here, and it appears to speak the language of money.
Money Talks—But for whom?
Will men prefer to practice law in a traditional environment because they might make more money? And will men be disinclined to adopt an egalitarian attitude because it could cost them? If we assume the answer is yes, then since men outnumber and out-power women, the scale is indeed tipped in favor of traditionalism and men.
It’s tempting to take the Gender Roles study as confirmation that the gender wage gap is just too hard to close: who can argue with the almighty dollar? But what if many, or perhaps most, men would in fact opt for more egalitarian law firm, knowing that such a firm is stronger in the long run? And what if one considers whether the firm as a whole is better off under an egalitarian rather than a traditionalist orientation? Then the added income for some might not speak so loud. Law firms that are committed to gender parity, to stemming attrition of women, and to the long-term growth of a stable, diverse, and equitable workplace, may not find that a dollar bump-up for traditionalist men is the first priority. These firms may wish to cultivate the egalitarian orientation for their own good health.
The Action Agenda: What to do after reading the Gender Roles study
The first step is for firm managers to focus on the value of closing the wage gap. The long-term value of an egalitarian environment will trump the value of higher earnings for some individual men attorneys.
The second step is to understand why a traditionalist attitude is correlated with financial success for men. Are egalitarian men seen as less powerful? Do traditional minded men fit stereotypes better? Do they put certain clients at ease? Perhaps dispelling myths and reiterating the firm’s commitment to egalitarianism could change that. Unless and until there is evidence that traditionalists make better lawyers, the value to the firm and its clients of a traditionalist environment should not be assumed.
The third action item is to educate. As the authors of the Gender Roles study wrote, “Collectively, institutions that socialize children to accept traditional gender role orientations may be sowing the seeds of gender economic inequality." By the same token, institutions that socialize professionals to reject traditional gender roles may sow the seeds of economic equality.
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