Are women paid lower than the men in UAE?

Jennifer Brown (name changed) works in a multi-national bank in Dubai. She’s happy with her job profile but is earning less than her male counterparts, something that often demotivates her.

“I thought they got better increments than me over the past years but I found out later they started with a better pay package. My HR head now tells me that I agreed to what was offered to me, whereas others negotiated,” she laments.

The story of Ms Brown is a common one for many women in the workforce.

Majority of women in the UAE believe gender gap continues at the workplace. According to a poll run by 'Emirates 24|7', 57 per cent of women in the country said men are often paid higher than them for the same work.

On the other hand, 33 per cent of the respondents said this may not be the case and the company they work for believes in equal pay for equal work, whereas, nine per cent of the participants were not sure whether gender pay gap exists at the workplace of not.

“There are many reasons why women are paid less for the same kind of job,” said a respondent. “The woman may not be the primary earning member of the family, may have discontinuity in the career path due to personal reasons and most importantly often settle for what is offered to them,” she added.

Experts agree these important factors lead to gender pay gap. They believe women fail to ask what they deserve.

According to analysts, women are highly uncomfortable with salary negotiation and as a result avoid it. Even when women do enter into salary negotiation they don't actively seek out the best deal for themselves, but rather look to a positive outcome for both parties.

“Research actually indicates that in many countries around the world, women are more likely to accept the first salary offered than men. This usually results in men entering the company with a higher pay than women and then making more money in the future as raises tend to be percentage increases relative to the base pay. Unfortunately, many women later find out that they are making less than men performing similar tasks and attribute this to unfair leadership, when many times it boils down simply to who negotiated for more when entering the firm,” Professor Horacio Falcao who specialises in Negotiation at Insead told this website.

Experts believe it is the very nature of women that often leads to this gender gap. Many women are open books, believe researchers. While this is a positive thing in day-to-day lives, this very trait can work against a woman when it comes to salary negotiations.

According to Grainne Fitzsimons, Associate Professor of Management at Fuqua School of Business, “research suggests that women are less likely to negotiate salary, because women feel uncomfortable in that role and worry about the impression they will make if they ask for more money. In fact, research suggests this unwillingness to negotiate is extremely costly for women, and leads them to be underpaid in a number of domains.”