A new report came out from Bloomberg last week on the topic of negotiation and the gender pay gap. It caught my eye for two reasons: (1) last year I was part of a team that worked on this issue under the direction of gender and negotiation powerhouse, Dr. Linda Babcock (check out “Women Don’t Ask” for a great introduction to the topic), and, (2), shortly afterward, I failed at negotiating my own salary in real life. Less than a month after I spent my entire “Spring Break 2012” holed up in a coffee shop working on our project focused on, once again, the VERY issue of encouraging more women to negotiate, I accepted a summer position at the offered wage without missing a beat. Why didn’t I negotiate? Two main reasons are commonly identified for women not negotiating, the first is that they aren’t aware it’s an option, and the second is that they’re concerned about negatively perceived for doing so. For me it was the latter and I had good reason – a 2006 study found that when women initiate negotiations, both men and women are less likely to want to hire them.
