According to a recent salary survey by ComputerJobs.com of over 32,000 IT professionals, salary gender discrimination exists within the computer industry. Although salary bias in the IT profession is lower than the average for other professions, the IT field still follows the historical precedent of paying women less than men in most technical job positions.

Females in the IT field make an average salary that’s 86.5% of men's average salaries, according to data from ComputerJobs.com salary survey. Hourly contract rates follow similar patterns, with women making an average rate that’s 85% of the men’s average. The findings are based on responses from 25,591 men and 6,329 women who participated in the survey during 1998.

The technology industry, however, is not alone. The trend of paying women less than men for equal work spreads across almost all professions. In 1996, women’s salaries averaged 76% of men’s salaries throughout all professions, according to Department of Labor statistics.

The staggering news is that the same historically-biased pay scale is still used in the country’s most advanced field. The IT industry has experienced rapid growth in the 1980s and 1990s, leaving little competition among workers for jobs and incredible opportunity for technology professionals. The technology field, unlike other professions, has no historical salary model to point to as a reason for salary differences. Which leaves the salary inequity explanation open for debate.

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"I think one of the reasons women get paid less in the IT field or any other field is that we are afraid to ask for what we are worth. We are not comfortable to negotiate our salary or ask for evaluation. I (have) made that mistake myself," said Stella Lee, Web manager.

The pay inequity could be caused by the fact that women are a minority in the IT field. Since women only account for roughly one-third of the industry’s workforce, some might argue that their salary averages are extremely good.

"Personally, I have not seen this type of gender bias. One's salary is based on their experience, what they know, how long they've been doing it, and performance record. I think IT companies know it is hard to find experienced employees and cannot afford to have this sort of bias," said Heather Wheless, an IT professional in Raleigh, NC.

Part of the wage gap in the general workforce results from differences in education, experience, and time in the workforce, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity. However, the rapid expansion, high revenue and abundance of jobs in the IT industry doesn't fit the model explained in the study. A case could be made that since men have been in the IT field longer, they could claim more experience and time in the work force, and thus more money. The jobs in IT, however, are atypical of most other professions because of the high amount of new and constantly changing skill requirements.

Looking at all the job titles in our survey and comparing the years of experience of men and women in the same positions, we found only a variance of 0.3% between the sexes and their level of experience. In samples where women had more experience then men, women finally made an equal average salary to men. In the case of programmers, where men and women made close to the same amount, women had less experience than men. These figures show that the amount of experience has a negligible affect on narrowing the salary gap between men and women in the IT field.

Studying states individually show the numbers are in sync with the national averages. The data from individual states roughly show a 4:1 ratio of men to women working in the IT profession and women making close to 80% of what men make. There were a few exceptions: South Carolina had more women respondents, and the data showed that men and women make roughly the same amount. In another case, Washington state data reported women making more and there were more men who reported in the survey then women.

Simple pay models can’t explain a significant portion of the existing inequity. Wage imbalance may happen for a very basic reason. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, that reason is discrimination.

"About 2 years ago, I had a manager award raises in a blatantly gender-biased manner. My male manager gave my male counterparts double the money. My manager even told me why he gave them more money. I received half as much money as they did because I was an unmarried female without children," said Melissa Alton, Web Producer.

Regardless of the number of women working in a profession, salary discrepancies never seem to even out. Even in professions where women dominate the field, like nursing, the men still get paid more. Women make up 93.5% of the nursing work force but only make an average of 90% of men in the field, according to a 1997 survey done by the Department of Labor.

If this is a constant trend, balancing the amount of female to male IT workers may make no difference. Ten years ago, not many women were working in IT, but in the last five years more women have joined the IT ranks because of labor shortages and the booming nature of the technology industry.

The solution to gender salary bias in the IT field isn’t going to be easily solved. Perhaps the amount of women in the field will grow enough in the future to offset the unbalanced scale.

"Look at the gender of those people who set salaries and raises...they are still, for a large part, males. We need more women in power," added Alton.

 For salary information for specific job positions, use our Salary Survey Search.