Women don’t ask.

That was the premise of a ground-breaking book written in 2003 by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, who described the barriers — institutional, cultural, and social — that hold women back in negotiating effectively – or that prevent them from even negotiating at all. They also shared the statistics that proved it. From Women Don’t Ask:

• In surveys, 2.5 times more women than men said they feel “a great deal of apprehension” about negotiating.
• Men initiate negotiations about four times as often as women.
• Women are more pessimistic about the how much is available when they do negotiate and so they typically ask for and get less when they do negotiate—on average, 30 percent less than men.
• 20 percent of adult women (22 million people) say they never negotiate at all, even though they often recognize negotiation as appropriate and even necessary.

Babcock and Laschever also demonstrated the impact this has on women and their families:

• By not negotiating a first salary, an individual stands to lose more than $500,000 by age 60—and men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.
• Another study calculated that women who consistently negotiate their salary increases earn at least $1 million more during their careers than women who don’t.
• Women own about 40 percent of all businesses in the U.S. but receive only 2.3 percent of the available equity capital needed for growth. Male-owned companies receive the other 97.7. percent.
• Women often don’t know the market value of their work: Women report salary expectations between 3 and 32 percent lower than those of men for the same jobs; men expect to earn 13 percent more than women during their first year of full-time work and 32 percent more at their career peaks.

So serious are these issues that when Congress recently approved the Paycheck Fairness Act, they recognized the critical role that negotiation skills play in helping women achieve pay equity and obtain higher salaries and better compensation packages.

So what does this mean for you? The good news is that women can level the playing field. With the right tools and techniques, women can become effective negotiators capable of asking for what they need. Consider negotiation coaching if you’re a woman:

• in business
• interviewing for a job
• planning a career transition
• recently graduated or about to graduate from university or graduate school

Please get in touch for further information.