Salary-sharing taboo a big hurdle for pay equity

Women are slightly more uncomfortable than men with the idea of sharing what they make, despite what they might stand to gain from doing so, a survey has found. Image: Thinkstock.

Efforts for pay transparency seem to be cropping up in more places.

Last year, the US president signed an executive order that would ban federal contractors from retaliating against employees who discuss their salaries.

Female politicians are also talking about it as a solution to closing the gender pay gap.

Meanwhile, more tech start-ups are making payroll details transparent.

Last week, the hashtag #talkpay gained momentum online after a programmer named Lauren Voswinkel encouraged people to publicly share on Twitter what they earn.

The problem? People prefer to keep mum.

Exclusive data from a LinkedIn survey of 1,000 full-time U.S. workers reveals that even if people increasingly see it as a solution for addressing the gender pay gap - or any other income inequalities around the office - they also still think sharing salary information is a big taboo.

Nearly 73 per cent of full-time workers, the survey found, aren't comfortable discussing their pay with anyone at the office other than their boss or the HR department.

Only 13 per cent said they'd be "completely comfortable" sharing such information more broadly, recognizing that it might offer workers better leverage in negotiations.

The remaining 14 per cent or so said they would be comfortable discussing their salaries with close colleagues, but not their wider team.

Women were slightly more uncomfortable than men with the idea of sharing what they make, despite what they might stand to gain from doing so.

There was a little more variation, meanwhile, among age groups.

Those ages 25 to 34 were most likely to welcome the idea of talking openly about their pay.

Thirty-four percent said they were either completely comfortable with it or would do so with close colleagues, compared to 27 per cent of all ages surveyed.

This jibes with other reports that have shown, anecdotally, that millennials are more willing to share salary secrets. Still, the difference in comfort level was perhaps not as great as one might expect, given the generation's reputation for broadcasting other personal details on social media. To wit: One analysis of the #talkpay trend late last week showed that many of the tweets using the hashtag were only taking part in the discussion, rather than actually sharing a concrete salary figure.
Maybe people sense what research has shown: If they find out they're paid below the median, they'll resent the difference. Or maybe they think it may not be worth the risk. Whatever the reason, any big shift toward a more transparent discussion of pay likely isn't going to happen until this entrenched final taboo is lifted.