Millennials Are Most Likely To Share Their Salaries With Co-Workers

Millennials are the generation most likely to share how much money they make with their co-workers, says a new market research study on money and relationships. Nearly one third of Millennials share salary information with colleagues, significantly more than members of Generation X or the Baby Boomers.

The recent survey was commissioned by Cashlorette, a personal finance website geared toward young women, and conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Through 1,001 survey respondents, the researchers found that 30 percent of Millennials share salary information, as opposed to only 19 percent of Gen Xers and eight percent of baby boomers. Older Millennials, aged 27-36, were slightly more likely to discuss salaries with coworkers, with 33 percent saying they do so.

“We’re definitely seeing more transparency when it comes to salaries. And, it’s likely for the better,” said Sarah Berger, Founder of Cashlorette. “Knowing what your friends and colleagues make in a similar field is empowering in making sure you’re being compensated fairly and gauging when it might be time to move on or request a raise. However, it’s important to remember that in many fields, your salary is determined by factors other than just your job title, like experience or work performance.”

Alec Levenson, who co-authored the book What Millennials Want From Work, undertook a similar but much more thorough study for his book, published last year. Levenson notes that many supposed insights on what makes Millennials unique are really just attributable to the fact that Millennials are at a different stage in their lives than Gen X’ers or Baby Boomers currently are. However, his research found that sharing salary information with colleagues is one area in which Millennials truly are distinct from previous generations.

“This is one area where we do see a real difference in Millennials as opposed to previous generations,” Levenson, who is Senior Research Scientist at the University of Southern California’s Center for Effective Organizations, told International Business Times. “Part of it is that in the internet age people are much more likely to find and share information on the internet with sites like GlassDoor. I don’t think we’re talking about a generation that is fundamentally less private than previous generations, but there are some segments of their lives in which they are willing to be less private.”

The results from Levenson’s book, which used a much larger sample size than Cashlorette’s survey, found similar results: 29 percent of Millennials discuss compensation with co-workers, as opposed to 9 percent of older, non-Millennial workers.

Millennials are sharing their salaries in response to opaque salary structures put in place by their bosses, despite the fact that if employers were transparent about that information it could improve employee morale and performance.

"Management researchers and consultants have been telling managers for years that they should be more transparent about pay practices,” said Levenson. “There are many reasons to be transparent - and one of them is that people talk."