Over the past few decades, the raw gender pay gap in the U.S. has decreased significantly. Nonetheless, the residual pay gap, or the chunk of the pay gap that cannot be explained by gender differences, remains the same. Meanwhile, there is extensive research showing that women continue to have lower salary expectations than men - a fact that raises questions about the relationship between women’s salary expectations and the residual pay gap. In this episode, Nina Roussille talks to us about the ask gap, a concept that measures the extent to which women ask for lower salaries in comparison to men. Using data from an online recruitment platform in the U.S., she explains how the ask gap can be used to explain wage
inequality.