Gender Pay Gap Stays, Even as More Women Become Managers

More women are entering into managerial positions in the workforce, but the pay gap between men and women is not closing in, according to research from Lena Hensvik, researcher at the Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation in Sweden.

The study looked at Swedish employment in 2008 and found that though women had 36 percent of managerial positions, wages remained 8 percent below an equivalent male manager.

The research institute published the study in a working report Friday.

At the first stage, I found that women with female managers receive higher salaries, Hensvik said in a statement. But when I went further and considered individuals who had had both male and female managers and how salary varies with manager gender, I found no significant difference between working for a woman and working for a man. Any differences appear to be tied to the individuals, not their managers.

The assumption from previous studies was that as more women became managers, the pay gap would close, which turned out not to be the case.

Earlier studies that found differences between workplaces with and without female managers should be interpreted with certain caution, since these studies did not take account of employee-pool composition differences, Hensvik said.