2007 Tech Salary Survey Results
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Comments posted here are about the content posted at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones/2935.asp
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Steve,
please check the article. Looks like you left out something after "DBAs are listed as the" what?
Thanks
Greg H -
While I agree with most of the article, and look forward to reading the Salary Survey, I must say I was surprised to see the following in the article:
"That still stinks for women and it's ridiculous. Women can do the same job and I don't think the risk of a woman leaving is any worse than that of a man. "
This is a very typical knee jerk reaction. "Everyone is equal, so therefore they should receive equally". And in Utopia that will be wonderful. Back here in the real world, there are certain mitigating factors that need to be taken into account.
Before I'm flamed or bombarded with hate mail, let me say this - anyone doing my job as well as I do it, putting in the hours I put in, with a similar background, etc., should receive the same compensation that I receive for the job. This is regardless of race, gender, creed, and all of the other things that make us individuals.
HOWEVER, I will use my wife as an example. She's a speech language pathologist at a nursing and rehabilitative facility. She's very good at her job. She also teaches part time at a university. She has degrees and certificates out the wazoo. She's been published in her trade journals. With all of this, she could be making more money, but she'd have to leave the facility where she currently works, and she is unwilling to do so. Why? Because she has off every Wednesday where she currently is, has a boss who is understanding of her time constraints (read: doesn't complain when my wife is late to work), and is comfortable knowing that when she leaves to have children, she'll be able to come back on a per diem basis to provide coverage when it's convenient for her.
The Dice survey results don't mention the fact that while most women earn less for certain jobs, they also tend to take jobs that fit their lifestyles better. Men usually go for more money. Men are more willing to relocate for a better salary. Men don't take maternity leave. My boss knows that when she hired me, as long as the job kept me engaged and they kept me happy with my pay and benefits, that I'd be here for a long time. I'm not going to take off for 3 months on "family leave", requiring them to acquire/train a temp to fill in for me. I am, however, going to work nights, weekends, etc., whatever it takes to get the job done.
I've worked with women who outperform me, who don't take family leave, and who have therefore been duly compensated. I've also worked with women who have gone on multiple maternity leaves, and with women who have used up all of the maternity leave, and then told the company they weren't returning. The fact of the matter is that since there is less of a chance that I'll get pregnant, there is less of a chance of me leaving (either for months at a time, or altogether). Am I saying women should be penalized for this? No. What I'm saying is that women (like men) make choices, and those choices have consequences. So if they freely CHOOSE to take a job that only requires them to work 4 8-hour days a week or has better 'perks', or they CHOOSE to work closer to home rather than commute to where 'the money is', or they CHOOSE to have a family, the consequences are that they may not be paid as much as someone who makes a different choice. You may not like this fact, but that doesn't make it any less true.
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It is stink that woman still earn 10% less than man and I believe that is true. What really makes me upset is salary should be based on skills not gender, the male database developers in my company have less experience and skills than me and they earn more than me, how unfair ? Most of the time, I even have to take over their work because they don't know how to do it !!!!
And you wonder why women exit IT !!!!!!
But in the salary survey I am surprise to see project manager's salary is higher than MIS manager.
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Frank
I work 50 hours a week and I don't have any special previlige over man, and I have more experiences and outperform them. That makes me earn less !!!!!
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The discrepencies between compensation for men and women aren't limited to IT or any industry; such discrepencies are widespread. According to the Census Bureau, women are paid, for the same job, approximately 75 cents for every dollar a man makes (it goes up or down slightly from year to year). If you go to the Department of Labor website, you can find salary surveys by industry. There you'll find that the pay disparity exists in nearly every industry.
Frank is horribly mistaken. There's no reason, whatsoever, to pay different amounts to two people of different genders doing the exact same job with the same level of competence. The fact that one of the workers might get pregnant, might take maternity leave or might seek a flexibe schedule at some point in the future is not an excuse to pay that person less than the guy sitting next to her.
Oh -- and by the way -- in addition to being morally wrong, it's also illegal.
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Frank,
I agree that if someone doesn't do the same job at the same level, then there should be a reason for pay differences. Figuring out "sameness" is tough anyway and it's why people that do the same job, say developer, have different pay rates. They're not much different, but because of seniority, experience, etc., they're different.
However, most women don't do anything. I've talked to HR people about this and while on average woman take off more time than man for leave, in any company, the majority of women do not take maternity leave during any tenure. That's because there are relatively few times when women have babies during their career.
As pointed out above, women often get paid less and it's simple discrimination. Or perception that they might get pregnant. It doesn't sense and it's not knee jerk to point it out.
Same performance, same job, same experience = same pay.
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I'd truly love to live in whatever world it is that you guys do. However, where I am, it's quite different.
A 2001 survey of business owners with M.B.A.s conducted by the Rochester Institute of Technology found that money was the primary motivator for only 29% of women, versus 76% of men. Women prioritized flexibility, fulfillment, autonomy and safety. This shows the point I made earlier, that it's because of choices they make that they typically (not always) earn less. Men make decisions that result in their making more money. On the other hand, women make decisions that earn them better lives (e.g., more family and friend time).
What happens when women make the same lucrative decisions typically made by men? They actually earn more. For example, when a male and a female civil engineer both stay with their respective companies for ten years, travel and relocate equally and take the same career risks, the woman ends up making more. And among workers who have never been married and never had children, women earn 117% of what men do. (From an article on forbes.com.)
According to Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for gender equality in the business world, men are nine times more likely to be responsible for bottom-line sales, marketing and finances, not human resources or public relations. Or, to put it differently, they take jobs that require longer hours, produce more stress, and are come with greater responsibility. I don't know about you, but I've never seen my HR director working overnight or on weekends.
Do companies favor men for these greater responsibilities to begin with? Sometimes. Overall, though, track records being equal, whoever is more willing to relocate, travel and work 80-hour weeks receives greater responsibilities. The male corporate model is built on a man's greater willingness to be a slave of sorts--especially once he has to provide for children.
Chris - if companies only have to pay a woman 75 cents for the same exact work that they pay a man $1.00 to do, why do they hire men in the first place?
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Frank
There are more men than women in the work force. In the recent study there was only 26% women in the IT industry. Don't start with men work working long hour and have more stress at work. A lot of women choose to stay home to raise kids and take care of the family, and you think it is easy. It is so stressful, no pay raise, no sick leave, no pay leave, no holiday, no vacation, long hour and I am talking about 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
How about you stay home with 4 kids for one day and see if you can survive?
Also having a kid and work is not easy, you juggle ten things at the same time. Wake up at 5 in the morning, get the kids ready to go to school or take the kids to go to daycare, then go to work. Sometimes you need to time out to take the kids to see the dentist or the doctor. After work, you go home, prepare dinner, start the laundry, getting the kids ready to go to bed, then turn on the computer to finish the work that you haven't finished during the day. Sometimes you even have to work weekend to make it up. The beauty is no one appreciate what you do.
It is the culture that men get more pay, also it is because there are a lot of men liked you thinking women do not take working seriously !!!
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Frank,
I assume you're referring to the following article from which you copy and pasted much of your post:
http://www.forbes.com/work/compensation/2006/05/12/women-wage-gap-cx_wf_0512earningmore.html
The author of this article has succeeded in confusing you. I don't believe anybody here has a problem with disparities of income due to differences in travel, position, responsibilities or actual time worked. On these points, you're arguing with yourself.
However, you can find the following quote in your own article:
"What about the headlines saying that even when their jobs are the same, men get paid more than women? Isn't that especially true in corporate America? Yes."
Therein lies the problem.
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I don't know if Frank thinks women don't take work seriously. Don't know Frank. Don't know if Frank is married, single, has children, ......
This is a very emotional issue, but it's just one among many.
I choose to work for a non-profit and therefore have a slightly smaller salary than my friends who work for profit. But it's my choice. I have the same challenges, but then I don't work weekends, etc.
A really good dba male friend works longer hours, makes more money but is stressed and generally not a happy camper. Even took a call at church Sunday for a db problem.
A really good female friend(not an IT'er) works for a non-profit and said she could make lots more if she went to a "for profit" company. But she prefers the flexibility she enjoys at her present employer.
My wife worked at home raising and home-schooling 3 children. I am well aware how much harder she worked. We chose that rather than have 2 salaries and more "stuff". My wife and I agree the non-profit salary is more valuable to us than the higher stress, longer hours.
We all make decisions based on what's most important to us.
Greg H -
I never said being a stay at home mom was easy. That is certainly a difficult, time consuming, and all too often thankless job. It is also one of the most important jobs known to humanity.
I also never said there were equal numbers of men and women in the IT workforce. Not as many women find the IT lifestyle attractive. It's also a field that changes at such a rapid rate that it's hard for anyone to take a few years off then come back.
I never said women do not take work seriously. I said, and studies have proven, that men tend to make career decisions based on money, while women tend to make career decisons that will earn them a better life. Saying that it's just a 'cultural thing' that men get paid more doesn't change the fact that it's the decisions they make that get them to that point.
Loner - if you do everything the men in your office do, and you have the same (or better) qualifications, and you are being paid less, you need to do something about it. But that's a choice only you can make. I used to work at a university when I started in this field. The pay was horrible, and was the reason I earned less for 2 jobs after that compared to coworkers (some of whom were women!). But the benefits were amazing - full health, dental and vision; unlimited sick days; 24 paid holidays in addition to 2 weeks of vacation; Fridays off in the summer and if you worked any of those holidays you received overtime on top of your normal salary for the day (you got 2.5x your normal pay). My mother in law works at the same university. She complains about the low salary, but when I left and told her I could get her a job at the firm I went to, she didn't want it. She enjoyed all the benefits, and the fact that it was 10 minutes from her house. She made a lifestyle choice that had a negative affect on her financial situation. But it was more important for her to have the time off, etc.
As for doing chores after a long day at the office, I do those too. If I get home before my wife, I cook dinner. On weekends, while she's preparing for a class, I go do laundry. And when we have kids, I look forward to helping with them too. As far as taking time off to take them to the doctor, or pick them up, my wife and I will have to work that out. But I know in my office, when it's crunch time, and everyone is staying, we frown upon the people who leave early regardless of gender.
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Yes Chris, that is the article. The whole paragraph from which you selectively quoted is:
What about the headlines saying that even when their jobs are the same, men get paid more than women? Isn't that especially true in corporate America? Yes. But according to Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for gender equality in the business world, men are nine times more likely to be responsible for bottom-line sales, marketing and finances, not human resources or public relations.
There's nothing confusing there. To give you an example from my workplace, the Director of IT (probably, and rightfully) makes more than the Director of PR or HR. Why? Because his job is more important to the day-to-day aspects of business. He's in charge of making the technology decisions that will allow everyone here to do their job better, faster, etc. He has to make sure his budget can accomodate our needs, as well as handle any emergencies that come up. The HR director has to decide which person will make a more reliable mailroom messenger.
Greg - thanks for being a voice of reason. For the record, I'm married, no kids, and the wife and I are looking at houses right now so we have someplace to raise a family.
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Yes Frank, I selectively quoted a part of that paragraph to sort the wheat from the chaff. Unfortunatley, you still missed the point.
Let's look at the entire paragraph again:
"What about the headlines saying that even when their jobs are the same, men get paid more than women? Isn't that especially true in corporate America? Yes. But according to Catalyst, a nonprofit that advocates for gender equality in the business world, men are nine times more likely to be responsible for bottom-line sales, marketing and finances, not human resources or public relations."
In the first three sentences of the paragraph (the part that I selectively quoted), the author is talking about disparities between men and women with the same jobs. In the last sentence of this paragraph, he attempts to rationalize this disparity by comparing income in different jobs (sales, marketing and finance vs. human resources and public relations).
Again, when you're arguing about differences in pay between a Director of HR and a Director of Technology, you're arguing with yourself. The problem is over gender pay disparities when they occur in the same job.
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Even if they have the same job it doesn't mean the do the same job. For a while I was stuck working on a help desk. We were all "help desk analysts", we all had the same job, but some people clocked in at 9, out at 5, and took their 1 hour lunch. Some of us worked harder, longer and more consistantly. We succeeded and moved on.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, full-time men clock an average of 45 hours a week, while women put in 42 hours. Men are more than twice as likely as women to work at least 50 hours a week - that's why most CEOs are male. Only in a socialist economy do employees get paid the same, regardless of the number of hours worked.
And Chris, you never answered my question earlier - if a company can hire a woman to work for 75 cents as opposed to hiring a man for $1.00, why are there any men in the workforce? Wouldn't they hire all women to gain the financial advantage over the competition? It just doesn't make sense that for a quantifiable work product, companies (and not just a single company, because you believe this is a global anti-woman conspiracy) would deliberately pay more just to have a man do the work. How much would a company have to hate women in order to be willing to eat a 25% increase in costs just to have more men on the payroll?
Statistics show that women and men with equal experience and qualifications, doing the same job, for the same hours, under the same conditions get paid the same. And this is coming from Warren Farrell, who was elected three times to the NOW Board of Directors in NYC.
I can't change your mind. I can only present you with facts (real facts, not New York Times "facts"). You can continue to deny it all you want. But remember, denial is the first step to recovery.
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