Gender pay gap at work: YouGov-Firstpost survey shows almost 50% of women feel salary doesn't reflect their work

The pay gap between men and women is a topic that resonates with workers across fields: Whether in the film industry, the biggest multinational and transnational corporations, the media or even the world of startups. [caption id=“attachment_651358” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters[/caption] YouGov India, in consultation with Firstpost, recently conducted a pan-India survey of women — interviewing over 750 respondents — asking them a series of questions spanning the areas of sexual harassment in the work place, the pay gap and the work-life balance. The exercise was conducted between 26 September and 5 October and employed a 26-question-long survey that covered respondents across 100 Indian cities. Having serialised the findings of the survey relating to sexual harassment , Firstpost looks at how women view the men-women pay gap at their places of work. The findings are presented across four categories — age group, pay bracket, the type of city in which they live and educational qualifications — and look at: a) If women are happy with their salary; b) What they would do if they had a poor appraisal despite a good performance in the review period; c) What they would do if they sensed a pay gap at their place of work. Nearly half of all respondents were not completely happy with their pay and felt they don’t receive enough in the form of compensation commensurate with the amount of work done. However, less than 10 percent stated a dissatisfaction with their pay in comparison to what their male counterparts receive. That said, over half of the respondents across categories felt that a poor appraisal or the thought of a pay gap at their own workplace would make them consider quitting the job altogether, even though under 20 percent said they would actually quit immediately. Looking closer, just under a quarter of 20- to 29-year-olds said they would quit if their appraisal was poor, while this percentage was lower among their more senior and experienced counterparts. Fifty percent of women in the pay scale of Rs 30,000 to 50,000 were happy with their salary, which is much higher than their counterparts in the lower and higher pay brackets.