If you're a female who was born after 1977 but before 1995 and you hold a job, you got a double dose of bad news today.
First, a new survey by BlessingWhite of over 7,500 workers and 40 senior HR and line managers, spanning three generations, found that employees in Generation Y are the least engaged among all working generations. Looking at both male and female employees, the study found that with the exception of India, Gen Y workers in countries on four continents are woefully under-engaged by their employers. The disengagement is highest in Southeast Asia, according to the survey.
Then a study of nearly 8,000 U.S. employees by CareerBuilder found that 34% of female workers feel they're paid less than their male counterparts when skills and qualifications are evenly matched. In contrast, only 11% of male employees said they felt the reverse was true. This, of course, follows on the heels of data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last year confirming that how women feel about this is accurate: in 2006, women earned 77 cents for every dollar that men earned.
However, two other trends should give young working women hope:
- As it's widely known, women live longer than men on average, and
- You're earning degrees at much higher rates than men – by as much as 2:1 in the American South according to Harvard University research.
So even while there are more males than females in the youngest generation that are just getting into the workforce now, women are more highly educated. With more women no doubt holding C-level jobs in tomorrow's workplaces, I'm hoping the dollar-for-dollar stat will soon reach an equilibrium.
Gen Y women readers: How do the employee engagement best practices look for you and your same-age coworkers where you work? And what are your thoughts on the male-female employee pay gap?
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