Is The Gender Pay Gap Real? Women And Minority Board Members Are Paid Less, Study Finds

RTX2YAY3 — Women and minorities were not only less likely to sit on corporate boards or serve as chairs and paid less than their fellow members, but also generally more qualified and experienced than their counterparts across corporations. Above, one hundred dollar bills were photographed for this picture illustration, August 2, 2013. Reuters

Women and minorities are not only scant when it comes to corporate boards, but they’re also paid less, a Thursday study from the University of Delaware and the University of Missouri found.

While average pay for female and minority board members was higher, the authors found that women and non-white executives were disproportionately appointed to company boards with higher visibility and larger salaries.

When they compared salaries of members of the same board, however, the authors found minorities to earn, on average, $5,000 less than their white counterparts and women to receive an average of $6,670 less than their fellow male directors. Men and non-minority board members were likely to make $1,190 and $590 more, respectively. The average board member salary in the sample was $196,000.

Women and minorities were significantly less likely to chair company boards, but they also scored higher on the study’s index of qualifications and experience level, according to the study, which examined the boards of more than 1,800 firms between 2006 and 2013.

The results were in line with much research documenting the disparity between demographics of corporate boards and the rest of the population, as well as the gender and minority pay gaps.

In its 2016 Board Monitor study, the research firm Heidrick & Struggles found that of 399 new board seats filled in 2015, 30 percent were women, 9 percent were African American, 5 percent were Asian and 4 percent were Hispanic. Of all board seats on the 2016 list of Fortune 500 companies, women made up 21 percent as of March 2016, but 24 boards were all-male, up from 23 in 2015.

As for the pay gap, the study’s results weren’t a far cry from those of the general population. According to data from the Pew Research Center, Asian women earn about 87 percent of white men’s salaries, white women earn 82 percent, black women receive 65 percent and Hispanic women earn 58 percent. Asian men, meanwhile, earn 117 percent of white men’s incomes, while black men earn 73 percent and Hispanic men receive 69 percent.

The study listed formal diversity policies and the appointment of female and minority members on compensation committees as viable ways to close the pay gap. But there’s still a long way to go: Just over a fifth of the companies had a policy requiring consideration of gender and ethnicity for board appointments and less than half had at least one member with involvement in the salary-setting process.