Has the IT Salary Gender Gap Disappeared?
Women earn as much as men for the same job but tend to hold lower positions, survey finds.
It’s no secret that women are grossly underrepresented in information technology jobs, with some reports indicating that there's still a glass ceiling when it comes to promotions out of junior or mid-level management positions.
But a new report suggests that there is at least one area where men and women IT workers are equal -- salaries. This, however, is only true if you compare equal levels of experience and education and parallel job titles, according to Dice.com’s 2012-2013 salary survey.
Overall, salaries for women ITs lagged slightly behind those for men last year, with average annual incomes at $87,527 and $95,929, respectively, the survey found. That difference is due to the fact that the two groups tend to hold different positions. For example, the top five positions held by women -- including project manager and business analyst -- pay less than the top five positions held by men, including software engineer and systems administrator.
In addition, four out of the top five occupations for men carry salaries that exceed $90,000, while for women, it’s only one out of five, Dice’s Dawn Kawamoto reports.
Both genders also report roughly the same level of satisfaction with their pay. For example, 58 percent of women said they were satisfied with their salaries, compared to 56 percent of their male counterparts.
“When it comes to technology employment, it’s a skills driven marketplace,” said Tom Silver, senior vice president at Dice, in the report. “The ability to apply that know-how to a given problem remains the core of employment – why tech professionals get hired and how they are compensated.”