Racism, Sexism In American Tech Industry: Black Women Paid 21% Less Than White Men, Survey Says

The tech industry may lead all others in invention and innovation but is no less regressive when it comes to hiring practices that discriminate against women, says a survey by job website Hired. The survey found that about 63 percent of women receive lower salary offers than men for the same job, in the same company.

Hired's survey used a sample size of 120,000 salary offers to 27,000 candidates from 4,000 companies. It found that race and sexual orientation affected hiring practices in tech companies: black women were at the bottom rung in terms of salaries; and non-LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) men were the highest paid while LGBTQ women were the least.

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On average, women were offered 4 percent less pay, annually, than male applicants for the same role, with some companies even offering 50 percent less to women. For every one out of 10 jobs, men got 20 percent higher pay than women.

One of the reasons, according to the survey, could be that 69 percent of the time, women have a lower salary expectation than men. Hired’s stats showed that a candidate would possibly get his preferred salary 59 percent of the time. Women, on average, ask for less pay than men once they had job experience of six years or more -- the average time on the job after which they start having children. While women’s wages decrease after they have children, men’s wages increase. This wage gap widens over time.

Race is another factor that impacts hiring in the tech industry. The survey found that white men out-earned every other ethnicity -- they made more than Asian and Latino men. White women still made more than black men, with black women earning the least — for every $1 a white man made, a black woman made just $0.79.

Non-LGBTQ men earned the highest followed by LGBTQ men, followed by non-LGBTQ women, and LGBTQ women being placed at the bottom rung of the ladder. While non-LGBTQ men were offered more than the preferred $120,000 yearly pay, LGBTQ women were paid less than $110,000.

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The survey found the tech industry in the U.S. biased against women: 75 percent of tech jobs go to men, and the women are offered less money for the same job.