Pay gap: Will Gen Z salary-sharing on TikTok make a difference?

Image source, Hannah Williams

Gen Z is known for sharing their life online. They are sharing their salaries, breaking a long held taboo and ruffling employers' feathers.

Anyone who runs into Hannah Williams on the street can expect to be asked how much she makes.

Ms Williams has over 850,000 followers and 16.7 million likes on her TikTok account.

Ms Williams started these videos because she realized she was being paid less than other people. She started talking about her career on TikTok, where she said her followers responded to her openness about salary.

This is not something that people talk about, but it should be. She created salary transparent street after learning about the gender pay gap and race pay gap.

There are other people asking these questions. The practice of openly sharing salary with others is being pushed by younger generations.

Lawmakers are paying attention. California became the latest US state to require all employers with more than 15 staff to post a salary range for open positions, and for the state to track data on how salaries differ according to race, gender and ethnicity. Gen Z TikTokers was a supporter of the law.

Similar laws have been passed in other states. Some employers have resisted salary disclosures in the past.

In the US, talking salary is considered uncouth. Dr Perez-Truglia said it's similar to discussing self-esteem.

When it comes to how valuable you are to employers, salaries are a good indicator. He said that it's not surprising that some people feel uncomfortable talking about their salaries.

The chief economist at Glassdoor agreed. No one wants to be an outlier if they're overpaid or underpaid, and fear of finding themselves there discourages willingness to share.

Younger generations are more likely to share personal information online. Survey suggests that includes salary.

Maria Colacurcio is the CEO of Syndio, a platform that conducts pay equity analysis.

Sharing salary will improve pay equality according to 80% of Gen Z. 75% of young people agree. Only 22% of Baby Boomers agree with the sentiment.

Women are more likely to agree than men when she approaches them to share their pay on video, according to Ms Williams.

Ms Williams believes that pay transparency will help close pay gaps. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earn less than men when it comes to earnings.

Victoria Walker disclosed how much she made on social media when she left her job.

Oh! Before I forget -- if you apply for my old job as Senior Travel Reporter, you should ask for no less than 115k, a signing bonus &a relocation bonus if you're moving to NYC. In full transparency, I was at 107k. I believe being transparent is one way to achieve equity in media.

— Victoria M. Walker (@vikkie) February 2, 2022

She said she put power in the hands of employees.

There isn't much transparency in our own newsrooms about pay, she said.

Studies suggest that when salaries are disclosed, the gender pay gap shrinks.

A recent survey shows that the gender pay gap has gone down. When public sector university salary disclosure laws were in effect in Canada, the gender pay gap decreased 40%.

According to Mr Terrazas, when pay is opaque, it's hard to know if it's based on something that's acceptable in the labour market or if it's based on something that's discrimination.

Experts caution that there could be possible drawbacks. "Pay compression" is one of the pitfalls that the Harvard Business Review warns against.

The right for US employees to discuss pay with each other has been in a national law for 90 years.

28% of employees say their employer discourages them from discussing pay with their coworkers, according to a survey.

Apple shut down a channel that employees were using to discuss their salaries. This channel didn't meet their terms of use according to Apple.

When Colorado enacted its pay transparency law, some remote-work employers tried to open up jobs to everyone. One Colorado resident created a website for all the companies that did not allow Colorado applications.

The more states pass similar legislation, the harder it will be for employers to not talk about salaries. California, the home of tech giants like Apple and Meta, will have a pay transparency law in place next year.

Ms Colacurcio said that that will have a big impact.

She said that the job is not open to all remote employees. Companies are saying that they need to comply with this in California.

She quit her job as a senior data analyst to work full time on salary transparent street She is going to make $150,000 this year.