Negotiation, Expectations and the Ask Gap
Why small early-career differences in expectations and negotiation can snowball into lifelong inequality.
Credit: Sora Shimazaki on Pexels
Salary expectations and negotiation behaviours shape early-career earnings - and these patterns differ systematically by gender.
Research shows:
- Women often enter the labour market with lower salary expectations than men.
- When women do negotiate, they are met with different responses, contributing to persistent divergences in pay trajectories.
- These early gaps have long-term implications for lifetime earnings and occupational sorting.
This theme examines the origins of the “ask gap,” why it persists, and how policies and employer practices can help close it.
Research focus:
Gender pay gaps aren't only about employer decisions - they're also about what workers ask for.
Our research shows that women systematically ask for lower pay than comparable men when negotiating for jobs, a difference known as the "ask gap." This gap plays a central role in generating and sustaining gender pay inequality, even before employers respond. When women set lower pay expectations, firms tend to offer - and ultimately pay - lower wages.
This work draws on The Role of the Ask Gap in Gender Pay Inequality by Nina Roussille (Quarterly Journal of Economics), which uses unique data from an online recruitment platform where job candidates state their desired salary before firms make offers. The study shows that women ask for less than men with similar qualifications, and that these lower asks fully explain subsequent gaps in job offers and final salaries.
Importantly, the findings suggest that pay transparency and clearer information about market wages can reduce the ask gap by helping workers - especially women - better understand their value, strengthening bargaining power and narrowing pay gaps at their source.
Once differences in requested pay are accounted for, gender gaps in job offers and final salaries disappear
Source: Roussille, Quarterly Journal of Economics
Nina Roussille explains how gender pay gaps emerge through salary negotiations, why information matters, and what transparency and workplace practices can do to reduce inequality.
Nina Rousille
Assistant Professor of Economics at MIT, researching labour markets, imperfect competition, and income inequality.
