• Question: Why are female engineers paid less than female engineers? (I googled it)

    Asked by [FaZe] Shinequa.KFC to Simon, Norbert, Ainz, Hannah, Siu on 19 Jun 2015. This question was also asked by Hasna.
    • Photo: Simon Lay

      Simon Lay answered on 19 Jun 2015:

      I don’t know and it is a travesty. I work with a number of female engineers and a good 50% of our scientists are females.
      One of my first contractors i employed is female and she has subsequently become a full member of the team and has worked with me for over 10 years and she is brilliant.
      I think that perhaps what happens is that women traditionally take the career breaks to have children and then end up playing catch up to their male counterparts that haven’t had to take the same breaks. This will become less of an issue as more men take the paternity breaks now the laws have changed.
      It isn’t just engineering where this happens but hopefully this will be sorted out.

    • Photo: Norbert Gogiel

      Norbert Gogiel answered on 23 Jun 2015:

      Hi!

      Thanks for your question!
      Well, first of all there is not a lot of women in engineering. Second of all, there are plenty of studies being done on why is it happening. According to what I know, it is directly related to women pregnancies. They loose opportunities of a pay rise due to the maternity period and maybe they are being paid less, because of the possibility being pregnant in the future. Also, the pay gap decreases almost to zero for the women around 40s, which makes sense as they are not likely to have children at that age.

      I hope this helps.

    • Photo: Hannah Pearlman

      Hannah Pearlman answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      Hi,
      Firstly, let me say that personally as a female engineer I am not and have never been paid less than a male engineer.

      Historically across all industries women were once paid less and this legacy is still skewing the figures.
      There are also a couple of other reasons that the statistics may say that female engineers are paid less; firstly women often pause their career to have children, this can mean it takes a little longer for a woman to progress than a man who does not pause his career; however it does not mean that as a woman you cannot achieve and do as well or be paid as well as a man doing the same job. The second reason that woman may be paid less is that often we don’t ask for more money or opportunity! Often a woman will receive an offer and accept it whereas a man may be more likely to negotiate themselves a better deal – this is one to watch for and act on for all women out there, not just in engineering!
      Certainly any woman who finds she is being paid less than a man in the same role should be able to challenge this as it is discrimination and therefore not allowed.

Comments

  • Photo: Hannah

    Hannah commented on :

    Hi – I hope you don’t mind me responding to this one as well…
    As a female engineer myself I have never been paid less than my male colleagues for the same job. I think there used to be a time when women were paid less and once you are on less money it can be hard to catch up, so I think that the results are a little skewed by legacy issues.
    I think also there is a tendency for women to accept an offer of salary without negotiating whereas often men will say no to the first offer and therefore negotiate themselves a better deal…
    Certainly I would not worry about this as a female engineer and if you are ever in the situation where you feel you are being paid less just because you are a woman you are completely within your rights to ask for the same as everyone else – and I would encourage any woman in that situation to do this.