Survey finds half of U.S. workers report gender pay gap

More than half (58 per cent) of all respondents said there should be national legislation to address the gender pay gap, while the same percentage of U.S. respondents said they’d like to see a law mandating companies to disclose gender pay discrepancies. Notably, 54 per cent of U.S. workers said this type of legislation would help to close the gap and nearly a third (31 per cent) said managers should be responsible for closing the gap.

Read: Just 41% of U.S. workers believe employer has achieved pay equity: survey

The survey also found more than half (51 per cent) of all respondents said their employer takes a serious approach to closing the gender pay gap, up from 33 per cent in 2019. More than two-fifths (43 per cent) of U.S. employees said their employer is taking effective actions to mitigate gender pay gaps, while 18 per cent said these steps are ineffective and a fifth (22 per cent) said their employer isn’t taking any action. Male respondents (45 per cent) were more likely than women (40 per cent) to think their employer is taking effective action to close the gender pay gap.

Nearly a third (30 per cent) of all respondents said their employer has placed more women in leadership roles and around a quarter said their employer has shown a commitment to solving the pay gap (28 per cent), made changes to the recruitment process (26 per cent) and made adjustments to female employees’ salaries (25 per cent). Fewer than a quarter said their employer has established internal mentoring or other training programs for employees (23 per cent) or disclosed their current gender pay gap (23 per cent).

Read: How employers can leverage pay transparency to achieve pay equity