There's plenty of industries in which Black men and women are not only underrepresented but under-compensated as well, and the tech world is one of them.
In fact, Black people who work in the field fare the worst out of all races in terms of wages, earning the least amount of money compared to other groups, Fast Company reports. Diversity in tech has been an important conversation for years, and there are even programs and initiatives that hope to balance the scales like Black Girls Code.
As much as it would be great for income to be tied to skill set alone, that's simply not the case. In two separate studies, this disparity was highlighted using a wide range of employees and salaries, with the average calculated across groups. According to a survey from Hired that analyzed interview requests, black tech workers are offered as much as $6,000 less on average than their white industry peers, coming in at an average of $130,000. Hispanic employees earn $131,000 on average in tech, while Asian candidates earn $133,000.
This can be tied to a whole host of things, including nepotism and the imposter syndrome that can sometimes make black employees not feel as comfortable asking for a salary they deserve as their white counterparts. The same study found that white candidates are typically more comfortable requesting a higher salary in the first place. But the gap is about so much more than simply asking for more money. A study from Comparably sorted through the salary records of 9,000 employees that made $150,000 or more and found that across experience types, education levels and even in managerial and director-level jobs, black people earned the least amount of money statistically while Asians and Pacific Islanders earned the highest amounts of money.
Unsurprisingly, men also outearn women in most roles save for Director of Engineering, tying at $175,000. Additionally, once tech workers reach the age of 45 their salaries begin to decline, while millennial candidates should probably up their expectations since they routinely ask for far less than companies were ready to offer them.
There's no easy fix for diversity problems no matter the industry, but acknowledging the shortcomings and biases that exist is an important first step.
