Tech's gender pay gap wider than many US sectors, study finds
Twelve of the 16 most popular tech jobs had pay gaps above the adjusted national average, Glassdoor found.
The gap between what men earn and women earn in technology jobs is greater than many other US sectors, according to new research released Tuesday by job recruiting site Glassdoor.
The job recruiting site found that the overall tech industry has an adjusted gender pay gap that averages 5.9 percent, meaning that women in tech jobs earn an average of 94 cents for every dollar that their male counterparts make. The study found that 12 of the 16 most popular tech jobs had gender pay gaps above the US adjusted average pay gap of 5.4 percent.
"Our detailed analysis reveals that even when factors such as age, job title and location are controlled for there is still an unexplainable pay gap between women and men -- and that isn't acceptable," Glassdoor CEO and co-founder Robert Hohman told CNET sister site TechRepublic.
The pay gap is one of many diversity issues confronting companies in the tech industry. Silicon Valley has faced tough questions about the treatment of women and minorities, and the industry continues to struggle with recruitment, retention and promotion.
Glassdoor found the largest gender wage gap was among computer programmers, with a 28.3 percent difference in pay received by men and woman in the same job. Among the other jobs also exceeding the US average were game artists (15.8 percent), information security specialists (14.7 percent), software architects (10.6 percent), and SEO strategists (10.2 percent).
The research was based on data in 504,438 salary reports shared on Glassdoor by US-based, full-time workers as of November 2015.
Hohman will speak about this topic with other tech leaders during a livestreamed roundtable discussion at Stanford University at 8:30 a.m. PT on Wednesday.