In Tech Field, Women Struggle For Equal Pay
(CBS) -- It's a sign of inequality in the workplace. Today is Equal Pay Day, when women finally catch up to what men earned last year. For every dollar paid to a man, on average, women earn just 79 cents. CBS 2's Vince Gerasole reports the gap also impacts the highly educated in swiftly expanding fields.
As a top tech exec, Rebecca Miller-Webster champions gender equal pay at her company Polymathic, a cause rooted in her own experiences at another digital firm.
"Even though I had a master's degree and had more experience than some of the guys that I worked with, I was actually making $10,000 less than them," said Rebecca Miller-Webster, chief technology officer at Polymathic. "I was angry."
The irony that a modern industry has a pay gap approaching seven percent for software engineers could be rooted in the small numbers of women still drawn into the field.
"Your competency gets questioned more, all those sorts of things that you hear about women in the workplace are somewhat exaggerated when it's one woman with a group of ten men, which is pretty standard in my experience," Miller-Webster said.
Mana Ionescu, president of the digital marketing form Lightspan Digital, says because women in technology struggle to get development jobs, they are often reluctant to negotiate for higher wages.
"Men are eight times more likely to ask for more or to negotiate for more," she says.
Companies like Amazon and Apple are facing pressure for transparency and to disclose what they pay all their employees. Some female executives also say women have to be prepared to fight the battle.
Miller-Webster is in a position to make a pay equity difference as an employer now. She says when one woman fights the fight for pay equity, all women benefit.
"I think of the number I feel comfortable with and I ask for 20 percent more," Miller-Webster said.
Bowing to pressure, major tech companies like Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple have disclosed pay data in the past few weeks, indicating equity in the workforce. However, surveys of employees show the tech industry as a whole has a long way to go.
