Women across West Midlands "not negotiating salaries enough"
Negotiation expert, Florence Rolland, says women not negotiating their salary contributes to the pay gap
After International Women's Day, we've been told that women all over the UK - including in the West Midlands - aren't negotiating their salaries as much as they should be.
A survey found three-quarters of women in our region - aged between 45 and 54 have not negotiated their salary in the last five years.
Florence Rolland, the negotiation expert who conducted the survey, says it's probably due to differences in how boys and girls are raised, but hopes it won't be that way forever:
"Historically, boys are encouraged to be competitive and sporty while women used to be more encouraged to be caring, to think of families, but I'm so glad to see that changing" she says.
"There's a perception of backlash," she says, "that perhaps we might be seen as difficult and we don't want that to be the first impression we make when starting a new job, so we don't want to push and ask for more money".
Florence has some advice for women that don't feel like they should ask for a higher wage, she encourages them to think about their best friend, what would they say to her if she was thinking about asking for higher salary?
"You would tell her to go for it, that she's so great; she's got this skill, has this experience, you'd say 'you're worth so much more!' we need to think about that for ourselves," she says.
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