It could take until the year 2152 for women and men to be paid equally for doing the same job, according to research from the American Association of University Women. Today, working women in the U.S. earn about 20 percent less than their male counterparts
While the gender wage gap has generally narrowed since 1980's 33 percent gap, factors such as education, age, race, marital status and motherhood can widen the pay gap as much as 44.5 percent.
Workplace consultant Casey Brown is an expert in this pay inequality. Her goal through her business, Boost: to help people figure out their worth in the workplace.
To better communicate your value at work, Brown recommends that you ask yourself these four questions:
- What is my unique skill set that makes me better qualified to serve my clients?
- What do I do that no one else does?
- What problems do I solve for clients?
- What value do I add?
In a TEDx presentation that has garnered nearly 1.7 million views, Brown says women tend to underprice or undersell their services more than men do.
"I've often heard women express that they're uncomfortable communicating their value, especially early on in business ownership," Brown says.
She adds that women say things like, "I don't like to toot my own horn," "I'd rather let the work speak for itself" and "I don't like to sing my own praises." In the talk, Brown notes she found herself victim to undervaluing herself and her own work.
"I'm supposed to be the expert in this," she jokingly says, but adds she shares this story "because doubts and fears are natural and normal, but they don't define our value, and they shouldn't limit our earning potential."
Although she says she initially feared charging her clients more for her services, Brown says by communicating her value, they continued to hire her.
"What do you love about what you do? What excites you about the work that you do? If you connect with that, communicating your value will come naturally," Brown says. "Being properly valued is so important."
"No one will ever pay you what you're worth," she adds in her TED Talk. "They'll only ever pay you what they think you're worth and you control their thinking."
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