Tag Archives: LGBT Workplace

Analyst Discovers The Real Cost Of Being Lesbian, And Now She Wants A Refund

A data specialist and entrepreneur has calculated the cost of being out in the job market, and the results are sadly disappointing.

Over three years, Vivienne Ming worked out how much harder it is to be a woman, from an ethnic minority or a member of the LGBT community when entering the job market or seeking promotion.

What she discovered was there is a “tax on being different”, and this fee has huge ramifications for the economy.

Speaking at The Economist’s Pride and Prejudice event in London last week, Vivienne said business needs to understand this and how it has to change.

When someone says ‘I had to work twice as hard to get where I am today’, I just had to know what that meant.

Did they literally work twice as hard, was there some tangible cost of being a woman on a board or being hispanic in the California tech industry or to be gay or lesbian?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSgiFjuGLy8

Intrigued and with a database of information to hand, Vivienne developed a model that allowed her to analyse performance information of individual workers and compare how likely people of similar skills would get promoted.

This led her to discover the tax on being different, where for instance a lesbian in the tech industry in Hong Kong – to be in with a chance of being just as likely to get promoted as a straight male colleague – would have to pay a ‘tax’ of around $800,000 and $1.5 million.

This tax comes in the form of advanced degrees, a number of extra years in lower positions and missed opportunities to earn.

Talking to the Pink News, Ming explained

In this particular case what we see is that the woman has to have as much as a PhD to be competitive with a man with no degree at all.

If you have to go through lots of extra work, enter the job market 10 years older, just to be equitable – there is a big question of why would you bother?”

When looking at the LGBT community in the UK, she said that even though society had moved forward there was still a divide.

She said:

Why would a gay man growing up in England necessarily put as much effort into his career if he knew he would have a tax of £38,000.

Imagine that 10% of the UK population was born with a £38,000 loan they had to pay. They never got the money in the first place, they just have to pay it back. What a disincentive.”

Vivienne added that what was important to note, was that it wasn’t impossible to achieve (she highlights Apple CEO, Tim Cook as an example), it was just a lot harder.

It’s like everyone can climb Mount Everest, but some people just have to carry 100 pounds of rock on their back for no reason.”

Vivienne explained that although the social justice issues are important, the ‘tax’ was actually damaging the world economy.

There is a case for corporations to care about this. It is because everyone will pay the tax for being different if we’re holding people back.

Estimates that we’ve done have shown that this tax may well cost the world’s economy $4 to 5 trillion a year. That’s enormous and what a profound loss to civilisation.”

 

New Australian Report Finds Lesbians Earn up to 33% More than Heterosexual Women

A new study from Australia has identified a big differences in the average earning power of gay men and lesbians when compared to their heterosexual counterparts.

The study concluded that lesbians earn – on average – 33% more than heterosexual women. However, gay men face negative discrimination from employers when it comes to their pay.

Although, at first, such statistics may be surprising, the study mirrors similar research published last year, which concluded that lesbians earn 20% more than their heterosexual counterparts.

Also read: Apparently Lesbians Make More Money Than Gay Men and Straight People

lesbian-working

So why the difference? Professor Mark Wooden of the University of Melbourne’s  – who co-authored the report – said it was due LGB women working more hours. In fact an average 20% more than straight women.

The research concluded that straight women were more likely to take time off work or be employed part-time because of parenting duties.

However, the same study found that gay men were found to earn about 20 per cent less than heterosexual men due to a lower rate of earnings’ growth – and this was worse if they lived with a partner and were more open about their sexuality.

We found that the wages of gay men are growing at a much slower rate than the wages of heterosexual males. Gay males who are most likely to be observably gay by employers – those who live with a same-sex partner – face larger earnings penalties than those who are discreet about their sexuality.”

Professor Mark Wooden

The report – Sexual Identity, Earnings, and Labour Market Dynamics: New Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Australia – concluded:

Gay men are 16 per cent less likely to be employed and are substantially more likely to have several periods of joblessness than heterosexual men.”

Dr Catriona Wallace has recently launched Ventura, a Sydney-based space for businesses start-ups run by women which places an emphasis on diversity and inclusion. Commenting on the study, she told Gay Star Business that she was aware of LGBT entrepreneurs having trouble when it came to raising investment.

Although I cannot comment directly on pay disparity between gay and lesbian people in Australia – despite being a reasonably tolerant society, my observations are that it is still difficult for gay, lesbian or transgender led businesses to reach a representative number in the start-up community.

Given the traditional investment community is mostly male, this may mean that being a gay man pitching for capital may be more difficult. That being said, it’s very difficult period for women, straight or lesbian, and minority groups to raise capital in Australia. This is something we want to work on.”

In December, a similar study commissioned by the World Bank and IZA World of Labor, found that gay women get 15% more in Canada, 11% in Germany and 8% more in the UK. Gay men can expect 12%, 9% and 5% less in those respective countries.

Lesbians may be willing to make a series of career-oriented decisions, such as staying in school longer, choosing a degree that is likely to lead to a higher paying job, and working longer hours,’ and they ‘tend to self-select into male-dominated occupations that may offer higher salaries.

[On the other hand, gay men in the workplace] may upset conventional assumptions about gender, and so their contributions to the firm and their leadership abilities may not be properly evaluated and they can be overlooked for promotions.’

Dr Nick Drydakis

LGBT Workplace Index Looks to Promote Diversity in Hong Kong

While the topic of marriage equality may get most of the LGBT rights spotlight and while chants of ‘love is love!’ are practically deafening, many have expressed concern, stating that there are many more pressing matters.

One such matter is the topic of workplace equality. Not only do many countries fail to protect their LGBT worked from workplace discrimination, in many countries around the world it is still very much legal for LGBT workers just to be fired because of their identity.

This is an incredibly scary thought for those having to hide their identities for fear of being fired and something needs to be done. Now, the city of Hong Kong is picking up the mantel, introducing something that they call the ‘LGBT Workplace Index’.

Launched by Community Business, an NGO, the idea of the LGBT Workplace Index is to asses how business fair in terms of LGBT inclusivity. The index takes several factors into consideration including advocacy, diversity structure and if (and how) equal opportunities are offered to everybody.

Hong Kong businesses have until February, 2015 to submit entries and the idea is that following the cut off point, awards will be doled out to companies big and small which have done the most. Some awards include LGBT Network of the year, LGBT Inclusion Champion of the Year, and LGBT Executive Sponsor of the Year which will only be given to those with the highest marks.

The LGBT Workplace Index won’t just praise those who are doing well either, as according to LGBT activist Brian Leung it will also be “a great opportunity for LGBTI professionals and allies to get together to drive LGBTI inclusion forward in Asia”. Meanwhile, Community Business CEO Fern Ngai added that this will help “not only LGBTI, but in general a workplace environment that embraces diversity”.

Hopefully, by reassessing the index every two years, companies will have a chance to improve their score. In a 2011/12 LGBT Climate Study, 71% of LGBT employees said that they weren’t open about their sexualities so hopefully measures like this will allow for a more honest, open and inclusive workplace culture.