Any firms actually giving raises or promoting women? Students - you want in on this inequity? How are you choosing where to work?
Driko
Nov 17, 16 11:26 am
hey im actually curios about this. I dont buy that stats of the $0.75 to every $1 a man earns because there are too many factors that come in to play. For the most part women do make just as much as men. That being said, I think it would be nice to see some data for the field for architecture specifically since this profession is noted as being low pay as you start off to making decent money in your 50's. I believe this lead to having a male majority.
SO,
What is the pay gap?
What is it in entry level vs Sr. level?
What is the avg experience in each level? (sr manager with 10 yrs vs sr manager with 7 years)
Hard data and nothing that is arbitrary.
BusinessofArch
Nov 17, 16 12:09 pm
Regarding how women (or men) can get a raise or salary equal to their value, is to strategically negotiate a raise. In his book "Never Split the Difference", Chris Voss says that women generally are better negotiators than men. A great book I highly recommend it - learn how to negotiate, it will serve you very well in your future career.
nothing_is_everything
Nov 17, 16 2:13 pm
WHOA! BIG FUCKING WHOA!!!
First, Driko, There is very relevant and timely data just published by the San Francisco AIA's Equity x Design Committee on this exact topic. I urge you and everyone else who hasn't been exposed to this to check it out: http://eqxdesign.com/
The HUGE points:
Men make more than Women in every stage of their Architectural Career on Average
The largest gap in pay is seen from Fathers (highest) to Mothers (lowest)
Male Principals make more than Female Principals in every project type/sector, the most disparity occurring in healthcare where Male Principals made $20k on average more than Female Principals
At the beginning of their careers, Women receive less career growth opportunities than Men (Women are less likely to be promoted to manager/sim, so fewer end up on the path to leadership
BofA, As D said, Many factors come into play aside from negotiation. I tend to disregard blanket statements like women are better negotiators than men because that doesnt mean a whole lot. It's more compelling to read reports like McKinsey and LeanIn.org's "Women in the Workplace 2016" which found:
Women are negotiating as often as Men but face pushback when they do...and
Women get less access to senior leaders
I guess some parts of the country are getting this word out better than others....and to the right crowd...the firm leaders and just not other women.
Can Archinect help spearhead or educate in this way?
Non Sequitur
Nov 17, 16 2:53 pm
We've just had two of our female staff leave this month due to them not liking their clear salary ceiling.... but that ceiling was due to them being inferior decorators playing in an architect's office. Had they gone to architecture school, they would be on par with everyone else boasting similar billable skill sets regardless of their penis ownership.
mightyaa
Nov 17, 16 3:03 pm
On the flip side; Life work challenges are much higher for mothers, as is time taken off following childbirth, childcare responsibility, and leave of absence and left a job to take time off. They are also happier with the work life flex and career perceptions in general.
Not to be an arse, but I’ve got questions. What is the correlation between the ability to be flexible with that work/life balance and compensation? Run it against males to see if they don’t have flexibility with work/life, if they had higher salaries versus males that did have that flexibility and how much of a salary difference that is. It might give a more realistic view of the pay difference.
There’s also a problem that I have with the firm size breakout. XS firm is <30? Seriously? No wonder it’s the largest bulk… that covers the whole gambit of the vast majority of architectural practices given the only size smaller is single proprietor.
You can’t just look at salaries alone. Even my wife knows this. She took a large pay cut to take a job where she gets to work from home and can put in hours that work around her lifestyle wants with a massive "firm" (she's a fed now). She left a slave driver type firm where there was zero flexibility; lots of money, but was nasty. Now she kicks back, picks up the kids, does stuff around the house, and works here and there. Was it worth the 40% paycut? She thinks so....
urbanity
Nov 17, 16 3:20 pm
not all women choose to be mothers. career women are still paid less than men, so how do you explain the pay gap?
shellarchitect
Nov 17, 16 3:38 pm
my wife, different industry, has turned down a couple promotions because she'd lose the flexibility that she currently has. She works 32 hrs total a week, one of those days is from home, and she mentions about once a month that she wants to quit completely.
I think a worthwhile question is why previous salary seems to matter so much. One would think that a person should be paid for the job that they are doing now. so that the female principle who rose to that position despite taking a couple years off or working strict 40 hour weeks for some time period should still make roughly the same as their male peers.
I think flexibility has a lot to do with the money. Pharmacist's don't really have "deliverables" and their pay is pretty much equal.
shellarchitect
Nov 17, 16 3:40 pm
to be clear, i don't mean to sound like i'm arguing that there is no discrimination, especially in our industry! I just don't like misleading statistics.
nothing_is_everything
Nov 17, 16 3:41 pm
Examples of interior decorators and a wife that took a 40% pay cut to have flexibility are mostly examples of "beyond architecture" in the EQxD survey results. Point is, women shouldn't have to chose other careers or a massive pay cut to receive equal pay.
"Even my wife knows this"?! What are you implying...that sounds helluv sexist.
I work in a firm that practices a lot of flexibility to help people manage a comfortable balance on their own terms (alt work week, every other Friday off, for example). Men and women are still not paid equally and the leadership is way male.
Unconscious bias and being uninformed are two explanations for the pay gap. Now...what can we do about it?
nothing_is_everything
Nov 17, 16 3:42 pm
why can't we LIKE comments on here?! or upvote / downvote
chigurh
Nov 17, 16 3:52 pm
Trump has made a firm commitment to increase the pay gap even further.
mightyaa
Nov 17, 16 4:18 pm
"Even my wife knows this"?! What are you implying...that sounds helluv sexist.
Sorry... should have clarified. She is also on board about there being a pay gap (I believe there is too btw). How big it is and how to measure it is what we agree is hard to define. There are gender / generational / class differences on what we want to do when we're not working.
mespellrong
Nov 17, 16 5:23 pm
You realize that the very question of this thread is sexist, right? Because it's not women's responsibility to combat the pay gap, the pay gap exists because of men's expectations. Men expect to not have to be responsible for large parts of the labor necessary to maintain society. They certainly don't believe that they need to pay for it. They expect that it's acceptable to see women only as sexual objects, not as equal members of society.
No, the perception that women are paid less because of choices they make about family and career have been demonstrably false for more than 30 years. You need merely pick up any sociology of the family textbook, and you can find a litany of bibliographic resources spanning back to the first longitudinal study of women's choice outcomes, which I believe began at the University of Wisconsin in 1954. And, hey, that's great not only do I have to educate you but I have to do the job of looking up citations for you too? Does your mom still clean your underpants up off of the floor?
Oh, I get it my problem is that I don't negotiate. Somehow, those really tiny differences in the brain that are the byproducts of either higher levels of testosterone or estrogen (both of which can be changed, by the way, with pretty simple medication these days), that those changes on the brain, "make me a better negotiator?” If taking testosterone blockers actually made people better negotiators then business schools would require that assigned male at birth persons transition to enroll.
If I negotiated, then I would get paid better for being an interior designer. Oh wait, at most levels of work, interior designers actually make more than their architectural counterparts. Interior design firms generally have bigger profit margins on their work too. And yet still, somehow, women in interior design also get paid less. Consistently, $0.78 on the dollar.
As an amab, should I expect to get paid less because I took two years off from my career to spend with my child after she was born? I negotiated a flexible schedule when I went back, and had no difficulty continuing to pursue my career. I got promoted on the same schedule as all the men. So it's not my flexible schedule, and it's not my child, it's pretty much just the sense that this is still a profession where being openly and aggressively sexist is completely okay.
Non Sequitur
Nov 17, 16 5:40 pm
See my post above. Inferior decorators do not, in general make more that architects.
x-jla
Nov 17, 16 5:47 pm
My wife and I share the child rearing 50/50. I have been changing diapers and all that fun stuff since our first kid. I am very thankful that I spent/spend that time with my kids and have a very close relationship with all of my kids because of it. I feel the stigma is still strong though when a male wants time off to take kids to doctor, school plays, etc. that no longer affects me since I own a business and have that flexibility, but when I had a 9-5 I heard many nasty comments like "we are really busy, can't your wife take off". I don't find that fair to either parent. What Im saying is that the bias not only hurts women, but also involved fathers. Times are changing as far as parenting roles go. The work place needs to recognize and accomodate both males and females with parenting obligations.
Non Sequitur
Nov 17, 16 5:57 pm
Jla, I have the same flexibility in my office. If I, or another parent needs to adjust their working hours because of kids, they just do. Who'se going to come to me and complain because I left early? Any time off, I replace so that projects or other team members(who may also have families) are not affected. I think those who see issues are the ones who ask for flexibility but do not return the flavour by compensating the lost project time via extra hours the following day or work from home.
I can see how this could be problematic of you're a simple worker bee in an office of hundreds.
SneakyPete
Nov 17, 16 6:00 pm
Single women are women, too.
nothing_is_everything
Nov 17, 16 7:00 pm
It might not be womens responsibility to combat the pay gap, but I don't see any man doing it. In fact, many men don't even realize it's an issue. We can give up and leave the profession and take cuts...or we can work toward infiltrating management and educating the rest about equity. There are firms out there that brand themselves outwardly as equitable places to practice. I want to know what they are doing.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 17, 16 8:37 pm
think about how silly a question this is "combat pay gap". I get it, but lets state the rational obvious. as a business, which most architecture firms are, if you want to be worth more make more money for the company. if you want a raise prove your efforts make the company wealthier. the data being presented is strange in this regard. It shows results split up by various categories - male, female, etc..... what it should show is merit and reward. show equal productiipn levels or rain making levels and proportional rewards. the graphs do not really show that. just because you have worked somewhere for 20 years does not mean anything. it should after 20 years at this rate this candidate earned this while this candidate earned that. or this female rainmaker vs that male rainmaker brought in equal proportions of money into firm but the male took home more etc........
mespellrong
Nov 17, 16 9:02 pm
Olaf, you have been part of this forum for a long time, and I acknowledge your contribution, but I have to disagree. the essence of your augment is that people are paid what they are worth, so if all women are paid less, it must be because they are worth less. Is that how you feel?
mespellrong
Nov 17, 16 9:18 pm
nothing_is _everything, perhaps I took your title out of context and misgendered you. If so, please forgive me.
Still, I don't believe that it is a fight that can be won by people presenting as female alone.The essence of the disparity is that some people believe that the fact that there is a difference is just fine. It is even advantageous, because if you call them a woman will do the same work for less pay, and a presenting as female single person will do it without expecting even equal treatment to her passing as hetero-masculine colleagues.
The crux of olaf's argument is that there is one idea that matters in work -- building "value" which is code for income, for the owners of a firm. You can't be part of architecture for very long and equate good with money. So I guess I feel that that argument for ultimate values, in this case, rings pretty false.
So I suppose the question is why aren't men doing it? Isn't that what chivalry was supposed to be? Presenting as male people, like Joan of Arc, standing up for what is necessary.
Wilma Buttfit
Nov 18, 16 6:49 am
Women doing the same work for less is the very definition of providing value.
What am I doing? 1. I discuss compensation with my friends, both male and female. This is how I found out that I was paid significantly less than a male colleague whom I regularly directed. He thought it was bullshit too. When my female friends change jobs, they usually call me so I can remind them what they are worth. I helped a female friend negotiate a 6 figure compensation package when she was going to accept $75k. 2. Skip the firm and get hired directly by the clients. Another reason IDP is a failed program... you shouldn't have to find a mentor who reminds him of himself when he was young to teach you the 90% you didn't get in school to be a practitioner. Clients like women architects, soooo turn this 'disadvantage" into an advantage. And if you are cheaper... more value, get referrals, get hired again, get picky about jobs you take, curate a body of work instead of taking any job to pay the bills... :-) wins all around.
I started my career in a small midwestern city at the ultimate good ol boy firm where in over 100 years no woman ever made it past her early 30's, about the time all the men were promoted to principal and the women weren't. This is the firm where I had to pour coffee, answer the phone, and serve lunch. I've also worked at firms where over 50% of the architecture staff was women and was done that way because they valued women on the observation that they tended to be harder workers, less entitled, good communicators, team players, etc. At the latter, we went a time where most of the staff was young intelligent ambitious women but unfortunately very few remained in architecture still. They all got better jobs eventually, not in the field.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 18, 16 9:03 am
lets assume mespellwrongs last paragraph does not qualify. then we have to look only at firms that are graded on success based on Income. So I would say use the top 20 firms for large firms as listed in ENR or something. the next step is even harder. you would have to divide partners (rainmakers) from partners (managers) from production staff and frankly exclude "designers" as mespellwrong points out that is hard to grade..... once you do that then you can compare candidates. i know this is very detailed and would require firms providing such info but that would be more accurate than an overview where a whole bunch of social issues come into play....an example would be Female vs Male on same project whose efforts are most profitable and does this translate to pay. a more bottom up study would make sense to me.
shellarchitect
Nov 18, 16 9:49 am
maybe the best way is to make salaries a topic of discussion in the office. If everyone knows what everyone makes it would likely be less of an issue.
Non Sequitur
Nov 18, 16 10:25 am
^terrible idea... better to have clear salary groupings (5 to 10K increments) per position c/w expected tasks so people know where they stand.
archietechie
Nov 18, 16 10:27 am
Shell - Whoa, opening up a can of worms there
SneakyPete
Nov 18, 16 10:34 am
Yeah. Knowing salaries would weaken the position of the employer. Can't have that. Not in 'Murca!
x-jla
Nov 18, 16 10:35 am
Id be curious to see a stat of which gender asks for a raise more often...If women are less inclined to seek raises then much can be explained by that.
x-jla
Nov 18, 16 10:36 am
Sneaky, that's up to employees to reveal not employers.
,,,,
Nov 18, 16 10:46 am
Government jobs have salary ranges associated with specific job titles.
Sounds fair to me.
SneakyPete
Nov 18, 16 11:10 am
Jla, exactly. And there's a large proportion of employees who think it's "illegal". It's not, and it's just another tool that power uses to keeps the power.
shellarchitect
Nov 18, 16 11:18 am
I was told that a former firm once accidentally emailed an excel file with everyone's salary info on it and a bunch of raises were handed out within the week...
mightyaa
Nov 18, 16 12:01 pm
Yeah. Knowing salaries would weaken the position of the employer. Can't have that. Not in 'Murca!
Actually No. What it does would be to force the employer to set their expectations equally across the board. Basically, if I'm paying you less than I know you are worth, I'll tolerate more. So you can't compare the employee who is good for morale, can motivate and lead, and clients love, with one who just does their work and takes home a check. They may have the same responsibilities, but that first employee is worth a lot more. Do I cut their pay to match the lowest common denominator?
Government jobs have salary ranges associated with specific job titles.
Lol. My wife is on that side of the table. Those pay grades are 40% less than she could make elsewhere and even within the ranks, there are issues because promotion has more to do how long you've been there than ability. It is a prime example of what started as a good premise, but fails. You don't move up the ladder rapidly, raises happen every work anniversary. And they aren't fair; it has to do with the fiscal budgets that were approved... if your department head lobbied well, you'll have more budget and there might be some bumps. If not, or there were cuts... Let's just say the workload doesn't change or have squat to do with compensation.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 18, 16 12:11 pm
government work is not really competitive so its a moot point. comparing partner salaries is tough especially if you are comparing rainmakers. on one hand a rainmaker can bring in a job but if management sucks the job may cost the firm money. but there is also a chance the client sucks. so how do compare those salaries?
nothing_is_everything
Nov 18, 16 12:16 pm
I feel like i'm sorting through a garbage pile of distopias here. The research has already been done. It's amazing how it's still not good enough for some people. There is a real, proven business case for having a diverse practice. We all talk to our peers about salary and confirm what we've heard.
Tint, how did your colleague have the productive conversation that resulted in the salary of worth?
Olaf, I hope I never find myself working with you.
Non Sequitur
Nov 18, 16 12:32 pm
^you must be real fun at parties.
nothing_is_everything
Nov 18, 16 12:42 pm
my friends think so
,,,,
Nov 18, 16 12:58 pm
If you want a system based on equity there will need to be some established standards.
Expecting employers to be or become enlightened is unrealistic imo.
Wilma Buttfit
Nov 18, 16 1:07 pm
nothing is everything, that I do not know. I wasn't on that end. I just did some fuzzy math and cheerleading for her before the fact. I don't think it was hard for her to get the higher amount and she is probably their best and hardest working employee - like others have said, the higher salaries come with more responsibility and you have to bring it if you get it. High paying jobs come with high expectations.
mightyaa
Nov 18, 16 1:11 pm
Data has been gathered. The interpretation of what that data suggest is a whole different beast.
I catered to working families in recruitment. Basically, when you are facing daycare costs that look like salaries, you are faced with some hard family decisions. As an employer, there were a lot of things I could do so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice as much and certainly not your career to play a very involved active role in raising your kids the way you want to. That is that live/work flexibility. I was in the same boat. When my kids were sick, late starts, doctors appointments, after school pickups, etc., I handled. Now that I’m a downtown 7am-7pm out the door drone, my wife is now handling that load; hence why she took a major paycut.
Gender didn’t have a lot to do with it. It was more that I knew that my firm offered value that wasn’t just a paycheck or dollar figure. I knew I could offer less and you’d feel good about it. And because I was consistently 80% female employees, based on my experience, I tend to believe women are often the ones who still make the most sacrifices and have to find that balance. Is that really sexist or abusive? Data alone would suggest it because it doesn’t account for anything except $$ as what a job and what you do is worth….
How much is it worth to you to leave at 2:30 pick up your kid and bring them back into the office to work on homework while you finish up things? I know daycare would says that’s worth about $10k for after-school pick up and to watch your child. How much is it worth to use your vacation time for an actual vacation instead of eating through it on late starts and shuttling kids around? There are things plenty of people are willing to accept smaller paychecks for that couldn't care less about your survey and data information and the conclusions you make from it....
SneakyPete
Nov 18, 16 4:54 pm
"How much is it worth to you to leave at 2:30 pick up your kid and bring them back into the office to work on homework while you finish up things? ... How much is it worth to use your vacation time for an actual vacation instead of eating through it on late starts and shuttling kids around? "
I'd answer those questions, but someone told me surveys are worthless.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 18, 16 6:51 pm
Olaf, I hope I never find myself working with you................can you elaborate? I did a corporate gig for 8 months and when i figured what I often did in 1 or 2 hours equalled someone else's entire day I thought it was a good time to quit and kind start the on my own. i started making 6 digits at the start of the recession as a consultant for the exact reasons I quit the corporate gig. layoff 2 people and have olaf do it in a half day...........I read the stats as presented but they say little to nothing about actual "performance". and as a questiom on upper management. if Phillip Johnsom was your partner should Phillip Johnson get most the fee because, well its Phillip Johnson? how do you grade someones existence?
awaiting_deletion
Nov 18, 16 7:23 pm
i re reviewed all charts. the only one that stood out to me were the Evaluation Feedback on engagement and retention. so if i am reading them correctly, the Males were less likely to be burned out with No Evaluation process and less likely to be retained without one............that is absolutelty a graph that distinguishes the sexes based on stereotypes which is how science works.......so if i am reading this correctly a Female will burnout more likely with engagement if she receives no evaluation while the male appears to care little and evem less to stick around if no evaluation......so can I say Men only care about evaluations if its part of a promotion process and women care because the actually want to know how they are doing and will keep working until someone tells them how they are doing? This is just like when a woman asks you how they look in a dress and you want to avoid the possible fight so you as a man prefer not to answer. and as a man you ask about how the tie looks not because you give a fuck about how you look but you want your woman who knows and cares about how other people think to gauge if the tie will get your money.......did I get that right?
Wilma Buttfit
Nov 18, 16 9:35 pm
Being 4-8 times faster than the next guy should earn you super mega mega bucks. Like buy a yatch already.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 19, 16 12:33 am
buy me a boat by chris janson...if me wife plays that one more time.....apparently there is more to architecture than production.
awaiting_deletion
Nov 19, 16 1:31 am
and of course when you borrowed your way into the class you live in now being 4-8 times faster means you break even. i would like to see a stat, nothing is everything, where each architect came from - what equity they came from before landing now.
Wilma Buttfit
Nov 19, 16 3:57 am
Yes, it would be interesting to see individual stats.
Any firms actually giving raises or promoting women? Students - you want in on this inequity? How are you choosing where to work?
hey im actually curios about this. I dont buy that stats of the $0.75 to every $1 a man earns because there are too many factors that come in to play. For the most part women do make just as much as men. That being said, I think it would be nice to see some data for the field for architecture specifically since this profession is noted as being low pay as you start off to making decent money in your 50's. I believe this lead to having a male majority.
SO,
What is the pay gap?
What is it in entry level vs Sr. level?
What is the avg experience in each level? (sr manager with 10 yrs vs sr manager with 7 years)
Hard data and nothing that is arbitrary.
Regarding how women (or men) can get a raise or salary equal to their value, is to strategically negotiate a raise. In his book "Never Split the Difference", Chris Voss says that women generally are better negotiators than men. A great book I highly recommend it - learn how to negotiate, it will serve you very well in your future career.
WHOA! BIG FUCKING WHOA!!!
First, Driko, There is very relevant and timely data just published by the San Francisco AIA's Equity x Design Committee on this exact topic. I urge you and everyone else who hasn't been exposed to this to check it out: http://eqxdesign.com/
The HUGE points:
BofA, As D said, Many factors come into play aside from negotiation. I tend to disregard blanket statements like women are better negotiators than men because that doesnt mean a whole lot. It's more compelling to read reports like McKinsey and LeanIn.org's "Women in the Workplace 2016" which found:
I guess some parts of the country are getting this word out better than others....and to the right crowd...the firm leaders and just not other women.
Can Archinect help spearhead or educate in this way?
We've just had two of our female staff leave this month due to them not liking their clear salary ceiling.... but that ceiling was due to them being inferior decorators playing in an architect's office. Had they gone to architecture school, they would be on par with everyone else boasting similar billable skill sets regardless of their penis ownership.
On the flip side; Life work challenges are much higher for mothers, as is time taken off following childbirth, childcare responsibility, and leave of absence and left a job to take time off. They are also happier with the work life flex and career perceptions in general.
Not to be an arse, but I’ve got questions. What is the correlation between the ability to be flexible with that work/life balance and compensation? Run it against males to see if they don’t have flexibility with work/life, if they had higher salaries versus males that did have that flexibility and how much of a salary difference that is. It might give a more realistic view of the pay difference.
There’s also a problem that I have with the firm size breakout. XS firm is <30? Seriously? No wonder it’s the largest bulk… that covers the whole gambit of the vast majority of architectural practices given the only size smaller is single proprietor.
You can’t just look at salaries alone. Even my wife knows this. She took a large pay cut to take a job where she gets to work from home and can put in hours that work around her lifestyle wants with a massive "firm" (she's a fed now). She left a slave driver type firm where there was zero flexibility; lots of money, but was nasty. Now she kicks back, picks up the kids, does stuff around the house, and works here and there. Was it worth the 40% paycut? She thinks so....
not all women choose to be mothers. career women are still paid less than men, so how do you explain the pay gap?
my wife, different industry, has turned down a couple promotions because she'd lose the flexibility that she currently has. She works 32 hrs total a week, one of those days is from home, and she mentions about once a month that she wants to quit completely.
I think a worthwhile question is why previous salary seems to matter so much. One would think that a person should be paid for the job that they are doing now. so that the female principle who rose to that position despite taking a couple years off or working strict 40 hour weeks for some time period should still make roughly the same as their male peers.
I think flexibility has a lot to do with the money. Pharmacist's don't really have "deliverables" and their pay is pretty much equal.
to be clear, i don't mean to sound like i'm arguing that there is no discrimination, especially in our industry! I just don't like misleading statistics.
Examples of interior decorators and a wife that took a 40% pay cut to have flexibility are mostly examples of "beyond architecture" in the EQxD survey results. Point is, women shouldn't have to chose other careers or a massive pay cut to receive equal pay.
"Even my wife knows this"?! What are you implying...that sounds helluv sexist.
I work in a firm that practices a lot of flexibility to help people manage a comfortable balance on their own terms (alt work week, every other Friday off, for example). Men and women are still not paid equally and the leadership is way male.
Unconscious bias and being uninformed are two explanations for the pay gap. Now...what can we do about it?
why can't we LIKE comments on here?! or upvote / downvote
Trump has made a firm commitment to increase the pay gap even further.
"Even my wife knows this"?! What are you implying...that sounds helluv sexist.
Sorry... should have clarified. She is also on board about there being a pay gap (I believe there is too btw). How big it is and how to measure it is what we agree is hard to define. There are gender / generational / class differences on what we want to do when we're not working.
You realize that the very question of this thread is sexist, right? Because it's not women's responsibility to combat the pay gap, the pay gap exists because of men's expectations. Men expect to not have to be responsible for large parts of the labor necessary to maintain society. They certainly don't believe that they need to pay for it. They expect that it's acceptable to see women only as sexual objects, not as equal members of society.
No, the perception that women are paid less because of choices they make about family and career have been demonstrably false for more than 30 years. You need merely pick up any sociology of the family textbook, and you can find a litany of bibliographic resources spanning back to the first longitudinal study of women's choice outcomes, which I believe began at the University of Wisconsin in 1954. And, hey, that's great not only do I have to educate you but I have to do the job of looking up citations for you too? Does your mom still clean your underpants up off of the floor?
Oh, I get it my problem is that I don't negotiate. Somehow, those really tiny differences in the brain that are the byproducts of either higher levels of testosterone or estrogen (both of which can be changed, by the way, with pretty simple medication these days), that those changes on the brain, "make me a better negotiator?” If taking testosterone blockers actually made people better negotiators then business schools would require that assigned male at birth persons transition to enroll.
If I negotiated, then I would get paid better for being an interior designer. Oh wait, at most levels of work, interior designers actually make more than their architectural counterparts. Interior design firms generally have bigger profit margins on their work too. And yet still, somehow, women in interior design also get paid less. Consistently, $0.78 on the dollar.
As an amab, should I expect to get paid less because I took two years off from my career to spend with my child after she was born? I negotiated a flexible schedule when I went back, and had no difficulty continuing to pursue my career. I got promoted on the same schedule as all the men. So it's not my flexible schedule, and it's not my child, it's pretty much just the sense that this is still a profession where being openly and aggressively sexist is completely okay.
See my post above. Inferior decorators do not, in general make more that architects.
My wife and I share the child rearing 50/50. I have been changing diapers and all that fun stuff since our first kid. I am very thankful that I spent/spend that time with my kids and have a very close relationship with all of my kids because of it. I feel the stigma is still strong though when a male wants time off to take kids to doctor, school plays, etc. that no longer affects me since I own a business and have that flexibility, but when I had a 9-5 I heard many nasty comments like "we are really busy, can't your wife take off". I don't find that fair to either parent. What Im saying is that the bias not only hurts women, but also involved fathers. Times are changing as far as parenting roles go. The work place needs to recognize and accomodate both males and females with parenting obligations.
Jla, I have the same flexibility in my office. If I, or another parent needs to adjust their working hours because of kids, they just do. Who'se going to come to me and complain because I left early? Any time off, I replace so that projects or other team members(who may also have families) are not affected. I think those who see issues are the ones who ask for flexibility but do not return the flavour by compensating the lost project time via extra hours the following day or work from home.
I can see how this could be problematic of you're a simple worker bee in an office of hundreds.
Single women are women, too.
It might not be womens responsibility to combat the pay gap, but I don't see any man doing it. In fact, many men don't even realize it's an issue. We can give up and leave the profession and take cuts...or we can work toward infiltrating management and educating the rest about equity. There are firms out there that brand themselves outwardly as equitable places to practice. I want to know what they are doing.
think about how silly a question this is "combat pay gap". I get it, but lets state the rational obvious. as a business, which most architecture firms are, if you want to be worth more make more money for the company. if you want a raise prove your efforts make the company wealthier. the data being presented is strange in this regard. It shows results split up by various categories - male, female, etc..... what it should show is merit and reward. show equal productiipn levels or rain making levels and proportional rewards. the graphs do not really show that. just because you have worked somewhere for 20 years does not mean anything. it should after 20 years at this rate this candidate earned this while this candidate earned that. or this female rainmaker vs that male rainmaker brought in equal proportions of money into firm but the male took home more etc........
Olaf, you have been part of this forum for a long time, and I acknowledge your contribution, but I have to disagree. the essence of your augment is that people are paid what they are worth, so if all women are paid less, it must be because they are worth less. Is that how you feel?
nothing_is _everything, perhaps I took your title out of context and misgendered you. If so, please forgive me.
Still, I don't believe that it is a fight that can be won by people presenting as female alone.The essence of the disparity is that some people believe that the fact that there is a difference is just fine. It is even advantageous, because if you call them a woman will do the same work for less pay, and a presenting as female single person will do it without expecting even equal treatment to her passing as hetero-masculine colleagues.
The crux of olaf's argument is that there is one idea that matters in work -- building "value" which is code for income, for the owners of a firm. You can't be part of architecture for very long and equate good with money. So I guess I feel that that argument for ultimate values, in this case, rings pretty false.
So I suppose the question is why aren't men doing it? Isn't that what chivalry was supposed to be? Presenting as male people, like Joan of Arc, standing up for what is necessary.
Women doing the same work for less is the very definition of providing value.
What am I doing? 1. I discuss compensation with my friends, both male and female. This is how I found out that I was paid significantly less than a male colleague whom I regularly directed. He thought it was bullshit too. When my female friends change jobs, they usually call me so I can remind them what they are worth. I helped a female friend negotiate a 6 figure compensation package when she was going to accept $75k. 2. Skip the firm and get hired directly by the clients. Another reason IDP is a failed program... you shouldn't have to find a mentor who reminds him of himself when he was young to teach you the 90% you didn't get in school to be a practitioner. Clients like women architects, soooo turn this 'disadvantage" into an advantage. And if you are cheaper... more value, get referrals, get hired again, get picky about jobs you take, curate a body of work instead of taking any job to pay the bills... :-) wins all around.
I started my career in a small midwestern city at the ultimate good ol boy firm where in over 100 years no woman ever made it past her early 30's, about the time all the men were promoted to principal and the women weren't. This is the firm where I had to pour coffee, answer the phone, and serve lunch. I've also worked at firms where over 50% of the architecture staff was women and was done that way because they valued women on the observation that they tended to be harder workers, less entitled, good communicators, team players, etc. At the latter, we went a time where most of the staff was young intelligent ambitious women but unfortunately very few remained in architecture still. They all got better jobs eventually, not in the field.
lets assume mespellwrongs last paragraph does not qualify. then we have to look only at firms that are graded on success based on Income. So I would say use the top 20 firms for large firms as listed in ENR or something. the next step is even harder. you would have to divide partners (rainmakers) from partners (managers) from production staff and frankly exclude "designers" as mespellwrong points out that is hard to grade..... once you do that then you can compare candidates. i know this is very detailed and would require firms providing such info but that would be more accurate than an overview where a whole bunch of social issues come into play....an example would be Female vs Male on same project whose efforts are most profitable and does this translate to pay. a more bottom up study would make sense to me.
maybe the best way is to make salaries a topic of discussion in the office. If everyone knows what everyone makes it would likely be less of an issue.
^terrible idea... better to have clear salary groupings (5 to 10K increments) per position c/w expected tasks so people know where they stand.
Shell - Whoa, opening up a can of worms there
Yeah. Knowing salaries would weaken the position of the employer. Can't have that. Not in 'Murca!
Id be curious to see a stat of which gender asks for a raise more often...If women are less inclined to seek raises then much can be explained by that.
Sneaky, that's up to employees to reveal not employers.
Government jobs have salary ranges associated with specific job titles.
Sounds fair to me.
Jla, exactly. And there's a large proportion of employees who think it's "illegal". It's not, and it's just another tool that power uses to keeps the power.
I was told that a former firm once accidentally emailed an excel file with everyone's salary info on it and a bunch of raises were handed out within the week...
Yeah. Knowing salaries would weaken the position of the employer. Can't have that. Not in 'Murca!
Actually No. What it does would be to force the employer to set their expectations equally across the board. Basically, if I'm paying you less than I know you are worth, I'll tolerate more. So you can't compare the employee who is good for morale, can motivate and lead, and clients love, with one who just does their work and takes home a check. They may have the same responsibilities, but that first employee is worth a lot more. Do I cut their pay to match the lowest common denominator?
Government jobs have salary ranges associated with specific job titles.
Lol. My wife is on that side of the table. Those pay grades are 40% less than she could make elsewhere and even within the ranks, there are issues because promotion has more to do how long you've been there than ability. It is a prime example of what started as a good premise, but fails. You don't move up the ladder rapidly, raises happen every work anniversary. And they aren't fair; it has to do with the fiscal budgets that were approved... if your department head lobbied well, you'll have more budget and there might be some bumps. If not, or there were cuts... Let's just say the workload doesn't change or have squat to do with compensation.
government work is not really competitive so its a moot point. comparing partner salaries is tough especially if you are comparing rainmakers. on one hand a rainmaker can bring in a job but if management sucks the job may cost the firm money. but there is also a chance the client sucks. so how do compare those salaries?
I feel like i'm sorting through a garbage pile of distopias here. The research has already been done. It's amazing how it's still not good enough for some people. There is a real, proven business case for having a diverse practice. We all talk to our peers about salary and confirm what we've heard.
Tint, how did your colleague have the productive conversation that resulted in the salary of worth?
Olaf, I hope I never find myself working with you.
^you must be real fun at parties.
my friends think so
If you want a system based on equity there will need to be some established standards.
Expecting employers to be or become enlightened is unrealistic imo.
nothing is everything, that I do not know. I wasn't on that end. I just did some fuzzy math and cheerleading for her before the fact. I don't think it was hard for her to get the higher amount and she is probably their best and hardest working employee - like others have said, the higher salaries come with more responsibility and you have to bring it if you get it. High paying jobs come with high expectations.
Data has been gathered. The interpretation of what that data suggest is a whole different beast.
I catered to working families in recruitment. Basically, when you are facing daycare costs that look like salaries, you are faced with some hard family decisions. As an employer, there were a lot of things I could do so you wouldn’t have to sacrifice as much and certainly not your career to play a very involved active role in raising your kids the way you want to. That is that live/work flexibility. I was in the same boat. When my kids were sick, late starts, doctors appointments, after school pickups, etc., I handled. Now that I’m a downtown 7am-7pm out the door drone, my wife is now handling that load; hence why she took a major paycut.
Gender didn’t have a lot to do with it. It was more that I knew that my firm offered value that wasn’t just a paycheck or dollar figure. I knew I could offer less and you’d feel good about it. And because I was consistently 80% female employees, based on my experience, I tend to believe women are often the ones who still make the most sacrifices and have to find that balance. Is that really sexist or abusive? Data alone would suggest it because it doesn’t account for anything except $$ as what a job and what you do is worth….
How much is it worth to you to leave at 2:30 pick up your kid and bring them back into the office to work on homework while you finish up things? I know daycare would says that’s worth about $10k for after-school pick up and to watch your child. How much is it worth to use your vacation time for an actual vacation instead of eating through it on late starts and shuttling kids around? There are things plenty of people are willing to accept smaller paychecks for that couldn't care less about your survey and data information and the conclusions you make from it....
"How much is it worth to you to leave at 2:30 pick up your kid and bring them back into the office to work on homework while you finish up things? ... How much is it worth to use your vacation time for an actual vacation instead of eating through it on late starts and shuttling kids around? "
I'd answer those questions, but someone told me surveys are worthless.
Olaf, I hope I never find myself working with you................can you elaborate? I did a corporate gig for 8 months and when i figured what I often did in 1 or 2 hours equalled someone else's entire day I thought it was a good time to quit and kind start the on my own. i started making 6 digits at the start of the recession as a consultant for the exact reasons I quit the corporate gig. layoff 2 people and have olaf do it in a half day...........I read the stats as presented but they say little to nothing about actual "performance". and as a questiom on upper management. if Phillip Johnsom was your partner should Phillip Johnson get most the fee because, well its Phillip Johnson? how do you grade someones existence?
i re reviewed all charts. the only one that stood out to me were the Evaluation Feedback on engagement and retention. so if i am reading them correctly, the Males were less likely to be burned out with No Evaluation process and less likely to be retained without one............that is absolutelty a graph that distinguishes the sexes based on stereotypes which is how science works.......so if i am reading this correctly a Female will burnout more likely with engagement if she receives no evaluation while the male appears to care little and evem less to stick around if no evaluation......so can I say Men only care about evaluations if its part of a promotion process and women care because the actually want to know how they are doing and will keep working until someone tells them how they are doing? This is just like when a woman asks you how they look in a dress and you want to avoid the possible fight so you as a man prefer not to answer. and as a man you ask about how the tie looks not because you give a fuck about how you look but you want your woman who knows and cares about how other people think to gauge if the tie will get your money.......did I get that right?
Being 4-8 times faster than the next guy should earn you super mega mega bucks. Like buy a yatch already.
buy me a boat by chris janson...if me wife plays that one more time.....apparently there is more to architecture than production.
and of course when you borrowed your way into the class you live in now being 4-8 times faster means you break even. i would like to see a stat, nothing is everything, where each architect came from - what equity they came from before landing now.
Yes, it would be interesting to see individual stats.