“Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation” By Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.   Did you know that failing to negotiate can cost you 1.5 million dollars? “Women who are full-time wage and salary workers earn about 80 percent as men with the same education and in the same jobs.” We’ve heard lots of reasons for this gender wage gap: stereotypes, sexism, tradition, the scarcity of affordable high-quality day care, and family responsibilities are often mentioned.  Another more surprising explanation is offered by Linda Babcock, a Professor of Economics at The Heinz School for Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, and her co-author Sara Laschever.

What if women make less because they ask for less, or don’t ask at all? Babcock’s studies reveal that women tend to accept what they are offered when they are first hired, right at the beginning of their careers.  Men, on the other hand, are four times more likely than women to negotiate. Men describe negotiating as a game, while women liken it to going to the dentist.  Babcock stumbled onto her novel explanation (women don’t ask) when she was serving as the director of a Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellow. A group of women graduate students pointed out to her that many of the male graduate students were teaching courses of their own while most of the female graduate students had been assigned to work as teaching assistants. Linda questioned the man in charge of teaching assignments about the discrepancy. His answer stunned her. "I try to find teaching opportunities for any student who approaches me with a good idea for a course, the ability to teach, and a reasonable offer about what it will cost.”   The discrepancy, he explained, came simply from the fact that “the men ask. The women just don't ask." Let me repeat that: "The women just don't ask!" What if women started to ask? What if they learned how to negotiate? What if women realized that by failing to negotiate their salaries, they lose between half a million and 1.5 million dollars during the course of their careers? If you want to help close the gender wage gap, start with yourself. Step up your negotiating skills, and buy a copy of “Women Don’t Ask: The High Cost of Avoiding Negotiation” and “Ask for It ~ How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to get What they Want” By Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever available at Amazon.com. While you’re waiting for your books to arrive, follow these three simple rules: 1.    Go ahead and ask for things you know you won’t get so you will get comfortable hearing “no.” 2.    If you never hear “no,” you aren’t asking for enough. 3.    If you’re not sure whether something is negotiable, assume it is, and ask.