Gender Wage Gap: Women Ask For Raises At The Same Rate As Men

Women get paid less than men — and it's not for a lack of trying to get paid more. A new study released Tuesday found that women ask for a raise as often as men, but are less likely to get one.

The researchers from the Cass Business School in London, the University of Warwick in the U.K. and the University of Wisconsin found that when like-for-like male and female workers asked for a raise, the men were 25 percent more likely to actually receive a hike in pay. This despite there being "no support" for a common claim that women "are more wary of requesting a rise in salary."

"Having seen these findings, I think we have to accept that there is some element of pure discrimination against women," said Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at the University of Warwick and one of the study's authors, according to CNN Money.

The study said it removed, for the first time, any impact from part-time workers being compared to full-time counterparts. It compared full-time males with full-time females, and part-time males to part-time females. That was crucial because part-time workers in general are more reluctant to ask for a raise.

The study looked at 4,600 randomly sampled workers in Australia across 840 workplaces. It was based on data from the 2013-14 Australian workplace relations survey. Australia is thought to be the only country to have a system in place to track if workers ask for a raise as well as why the workers made the decision in either direction.

"It could be that Australia is odd," Oswald told BBC News. "But it's a modern industrial economy halfway in character between Britain and the U.S., so I think that's unlikely."

The study found that younger men and women asked and received raises at the same rate, which could indicate a shift in the future as that segment of the workforce ages.

"Young women under 40 are negotiating their pay more successfully than older females, so the trend is looking better," said Amanda Goodall, researcher from Cass Business School, via CNN Money.