Gender Equity Index
Dance Aspen in Danielle Rowe’s “Everyone’s in St. Barth’s”
Photo by Beau Pearson
Courtesy of Dance Aspen
DDP’s 2023 Gender Equity Index results are currently under construction — be the first to know when results go live by joining our mailing list!
What is a Gender Equity Index?
Gender equity: “fairness of treatment for women and men, according to their respective needs. This may include equal treatment or treatment that is different but which is considered equivalent in terms of rights, benefits, obligations and opportunities.” (International Labour Office [ILO], 2000)
A gender equity index is a method of tracking and ranking companies based on their performance as it relates to gender equity. Some examples of Gender Equity Indices include:
Dance Data Project® referenced multiple other examples of Gender Equity Indices to inform the creation and development of this survey. A comprehensive list of this research can be found here.
Why is transparency important in a healthy work environment?
Research shows that higher corporate transparency increases an organization’s value and trustworthiness (Lang et al, 2012 and Schnackenberg et al, 2020). Alternatively, low corporate transparency leads to poorer business outcomes (Anderson et al, 2009). By simply providing senior managers with data on how their pay decisions compared to others helped managers hold themselves accountable and reduce pay disparities by gender, race, and birth nationality. (University of Massachusetts, Center for Employment Equity).
“Pay transparency doesn’t just help with diversity, it helps all employees in the organization. Openness and honesty about pay and how pay is determined can help employees to set and achieve their goals. By offering clear, objective data on how to advance in their organization, employees are motivated to succeed.” (Forbes)
Legal Momentum argues, pay secrecy has long thwarted pay equity for a number of reasons:
- It creates opportunities for employers to inject gender and racial bias into the salary setting process, which research shows employers do
- It disproportionately disadvantages women and people of color, who historically have earned less due to discriminatory practices, have less leverage, and are thus in a weaker position to negotiate higher salaries.
- It limits the effectiveness of our existing equal pay laws, preventing women, people of color, and enforcement agencies, and other vulnerable groups from identifying problematic pay disparities asserting their rights under these laws
- It allows employers to continue relying on applicants’ prior salary or salary expectations, a practice known to perpetuate the wage gap for women and people of color who have been paid less over time.
DDP conducted extensive research on the importance of corporate transparency. These findings have been compiled and can be viewed here.
