Women More Likely to Ask For Raises, Less Likely to Get Them

Women More Likely to Ask For Raises, Less Likely to Get Them Hey career coaches, guess what: You can stop telling women they need to ask for more raises to close the gender pay gap. A new study shows that women do ask for plenty of raises, only it doesn’t help. According to a new study of Australian women, female employees are just as likely than their male counterparts to pipe up and ask for raises. The problem is that these women are then less likely to actually get raises compared to men. “Women do ask. However, women do not get,” the researchers wrote. They said this is an important distinction to make, since the narrative that women aren’t getting raises because they’re not asking for them kind of puts the blame on the women themselves for not earning more, and dodges the question of whether workplace sexism plays a role. The researchers behind the new study said the evidence bolsters the case that sexism, rather than female reticence, is the culprit. “Such a finding is potentially consistent with the existence of discrimination in the labor market,” they wrote. The study did find that the youngest generation of women in the workforce today are getting more traction with their requests for raises, according to the New York Times. But meanwhile, there are indications that some workplaces in corporate America still have a long way to go. Even being famous and influential isn’t enough to shield women from the effects of workplace sexism, according to a CNN/Money report about Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren’s abrupt departure from the network, which included not only taking her off the air, but deleting her biography and her blog from the network’s website. The reason, according to the report, is that she dared to ask for a raise. “[Rupert] Murdoch, the patriarch of Fox’s parent company 21st Century Fox, disliked her recent attempt to renegotiate her contract,” CNN reported. (Fox declined to comment for the story.) Read Next: 6 Excuses for the Gender Pay Gap You Can Stop Using The allegation is unlikely to help Fox News’ reputation, which has been dogged by sexism and harassment accusations that ultimately led to former head Roger Ailes’ resignation.