Is there a glass ceiling for female and minority usability practitioners?
Posted on April 18th, 2006 in Usability | 5 Comments »
Paul Sherman, the Vice-President of the Usability Professionals’ Association (UPA), was the author of the UPA salary survey. He made some of his own observations about the survey. Here’s a point that I missed in my summary that I think is worth considering for a moment:
The average salary for males was $82,882; for females, $74,316.
Is there a glass ceiling for female usability practitioners? Similarly, how about minorities?
5 Responses
Disclaimer: I haven’t read the entire study in question. But I did do some quick 10-minute research into gender salary differences. Couple points:
(1) Question: How much higher/lower is the difference for usability experts than the average for all jobs/careers? This is not meant to excuse the difference, just to figure out if usability experts are exceptional in their salary differences.
(2) I read somewhere that women make $0.76 for each $1.00 men make. (much more than the 10% difference in usability experts). But the statistic is not completely applicable to this discussion. Much of this difference in total salaries is due to the fact that women tend to have lower paying jobs/careers than men do. What would be more interesting is an average difference for men and women with the same job/career. (Like the one you have for usability experts.)
(3) Some statistics will show that women are paid x% less than men in a certain career. However differences in salary can be much less when values like age, # of years with the employer, and rank are taken into account. The question for this study would be: are men in general more senior than women in this field? Or have men been working in the field longer, and so women might be less experienced? Again, I haven’t read the study (I should!) so maybe these aren’t taken into account. Also, I understand that these types of arguments can often be used by prejudice people to excuse themselves from the facts. Especially the difference in rank is a questionable thing to isolate. I don’t care if you are paying women less or giving them less promotions; the difference is the same.
[...] have you seen the UPA 2005 Salary Survey? [warning - PDF]. Paul Sherman, who authored the report made a note in his summary that ‘The average salary for males was $82,882; for females, $74,316′. I’m not even sure if I’m surprised or disappointed. Any thoughts? (via WebWord) Share or Save this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
[...] I ask: Is there a glass ceiling for female usability practitioners? [...]
I can tell you that my last employer paid a male with similar skills $1500 more than the female counterpart for the same role. They cited that the male (with a bachelors) had 1.5 more years in the field (doing UI work for cell phones) while the female (with a Masters) had all her experience in software usability which was the role at the company. It is possible that they had a valid argument the real problem is that pay raises are percentages so the small $1500 gap grows even if both people perform at the same level.
This is something to think about. Which is more important, experience in a related field or education?
Please understand the main function of this company was not usability or design work.
Sucks Huh?? But there are more some things men don’t beat women. http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/epic/internet/ineas-aes.nsf/en/ra00047e.html
Bob
Don Lapre Is Cool
http://www.dec50th.com
bob@dec50th.com