Gender equality norms as buffer of gender inequality in salary offers

Women’s lower negotiation success contributes to the gender pay gap. We hypothesized that lower counteroffers made to female than male job applicants in salary negotiations may be one reason for the negotiation gap. To test this hypothesis, in three experiments, samples of HR professionals read about a fictitious applicant’s (male/female) initial salary demand and made counteroffers and final offers. Study 1 (N = 91) showed that counteroffers designated to women were in trend and final offers were significantly lower (4.7% difference) than those designated to men. In Study 2 (N = 206), again applicant gender was manipulated, but in addition in the female applicant condition, information on either a static or a dynamic norm of reducing the gender pay gap was given. Higher counteroffer (adjusted for usual starting salaries) to men (vs. women) were only made when no norm was made salient, whereas no differences occurred in the norm conditions. A third, preregistered experiment is currently under way with the aim of replicating the above findings. The results suggest that different reactions to males’ and females’ salary demands might contribute to the gender pay gap in the absence of norms to reduce it.