Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide.

Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide By Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Pp. ix, 223. $24.99

How do women sell themselves short? In Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide, Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever count the ways. Women fail to perceive the opportunity to negotiate, they feel no need to improve their position, they feel undeserving of greater rewards, social norms and anxiety prevent them from initiating negotiations and making demands, they lack information to set appropriate goals, they tend to set lower goals, they capitulate sooner, and opposing parties tend to negotiate harder against them. These tendencies are found in women in their twenties as well as older cohorts. Babcock and Laschever carefully address each link in the chain of women's weaker performance at the negotiating table, reviewing the appropriate literature and presenting the results of new research they conducted to address their questions.

Economists in particular should pay heed. Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn (2004) have investigated tenure outcomes for women in economics. The gender gap in the tenure rate 10 years after the Ph.D. is more than 20 percentage points, compared to 8 in social science and less than 3 in physical science, statistics, life science, engineering, and political science. Fully three-quarters of the gap is not explained by differences in endowments. Ginther and Kahn show that women publish fewer papers than men (although the tenure gap remains when controlling for publications) and hypothesize that women may enjoy fewer research-enhancing resources such as research assistance and course reductions. So much is up for grabs in the ivory tower, and it is easy to imagine that women are not getting their fair share, to their professional detriment.

Women Don't Ask has the potential to be a very depressing book. The authors have collected numerous distressing stories from women who didn't ask. For example, several women confess that they were so grateful to receive a job offer that they allowed the employer to name their salary, later learning that others were being paid much more. Researchers have estimated that an employee who negotiates every salary increase will earn a million dollars more over the course of a career compared to one who does not. Asking is necessary outside the workplace as well. One story, about a woman who didn't marry the father of her child,

although he was willing, because she waited for him to propose, makes that perfectly clear.

Babcock and Laschever point out that, despite huge gains in the workplace by women during the past decades, the negotiation gap persists and many of the contributing factors are woven into our culture. Both men and women feel anxiety about speaking up, but men often find they are able to get things they want and they learn to ignore the uneasiness. The rewards for women are smaller; they tend to ask for less and to receive it less often. Rather than becoming empowered, women naturally become discouraged. The gap is perpetuated as our children watch us. Babcock recounts how her habit of relying on her husband to carry cash and pay for most purchases led their young daughter to ask whether girls have money. A child I know, having observed who usually takes the wheel when a husband and wife are going somewhere, asked her parents, "If a girl grows up to marry a boy, can she still drive a car?"

However, the authors take care not to blame women. Their review of the evidence is aimed at understanding when and how problems occur for women in negotiation in order to implement changes. Ultimately, their message is inspiring and optimistic. In each chapter, they describe what employers can do to ensure that they are not overlooking the potential of female employees who don't speak up for themselves and what women can do to improve their own outcomes. They report on several intervention strategies that have enabled women to close the negotiation gap with men in experimental settings and to report increased confidence and success in negotiating in many aspects of their lives. (In fact, I suspect there is a lot of money to be made in offering such training to companies and to the public.) The book concludes with a chapter on how women's tendency to choose more integrative bargaining strategies can result in better outcomes for all parties.

This book will be of great value to many audiences. For researchers interested in gender issues or negotiation, it provides a comprehensive and easy-to-read survey of research at the intersection of those topics from economics and psychology. For readers who are supervisors or managers, the book points out that even well-intentioned people can create gender differences in resources or rewards by being reactive and awarding the grease to the squeaky wheels--who tend to be male. Babcock herself fell into this pattern when she was head of the graduate program at her school. Proactive strategies can help women speak up about their needs and wants and can ensure that good things are distributed according to need or merit rather than simply to whoever asks for them. Of course, women will benefit from the recommendations. The book would make an excellent gift for women graduating from college. A better future lies ahead for us and for our daughters and sons--if we ask for it.

References

Ginther, Donna K., Shulamit Kahn (2004). Women in economics: Moving up or falling off the academic career ladder? Journal of Economic Perspectives, forthcoming.

Sara Solnick

University of Vermont