Female executives confront equity pay disparity with male peers

The latest paradox for female executives is that the higher they climb the corporate ladder, the worse the pay disparity becomes, due largely to receiving smaller equity grants than their male counterparts.
 

While it’s well known that women in the US typically make about 83 cents for every dollar a man earns, that’s just base salary. As women increasingly populate the C-suite, the compensation mix weighs toward stock or options and the disparity to their male peers grows. In 2020, for example, women in the top ranks of S&P 500 leadership earned only 75 per cent of male executives, the widest gap in nine years, with most of the disparity from gains in stock ownership, according to Morningstar. The differences only increase for women of colour.
 

Part of the problem is that while women are making it to the C-suite, it’s often to jobs such as the head of human resources or chief marketing officer, said Joseph Blasi, a professor at Rutgers University, who specialises in equity compensation. Those positions  typically come with lower stock grants than roles that more often go to men such as those running business units. 

Until now, few options have existed for basic education on what to ask for in terms of equity compensation, said.
 

Jane Alexander, the chief marketing officer at Carta. Only about 27 per cent of the equity granted  in 2021 went to women, even though they represent almost half the workforce, Carta data show. Latinas get the lowest share.