Women Do Ask

We've had discussions about negotiating, and specifically negotiating for salary, before. I've enthusiastically recommended the book Women Don't Ask by Linda Babcock and Sarah Laschever, which encourages women to negotiate and to ask for things more frequently, large and small. While I still think this is good advice, a recent Catalyst study says that women do ask, but it doesn't help them.

From their blog post:

[B]y looking at the career paths of over 4000 MBA grads from around the world, Catalyst found that women were more likely than men to ask for a variety of skill-building experiences and to proactively seek training opportunities. And we also found that women and men negotiated for a higher level position or greater compensation during the hiring process for their current job at equal rates.

Women do ask—but get little in return. Equally skilled men advance farther and more quickly than their female peers. In fact, we found that the $4600 pay gap that starts from day one grew to more than $31,000 several years down the track—even when women asked.