University Report: Gender Pay Discrimination at Google

This report analyzes gender pay discrimination at Google, examining lawsuits and internal reports highlighting pay discrepancies between male and female employees. The introduction outlines the context of lawsuits filed against Google, focusing on gender-based pay disparities. The report addresses key questions about workplace discrimination, solutions, and its effects. It delves into background information on gender pay differences, citing studies and reports that reveal significant gaps, particularly in technology companies. The report discusses conflicting reports, including a class-action lawsuit and Google's internal studies, and addresses the company's efforts to address pay inequities, including adjustments to employee compensation. It also outlines recommendations for addressing gender discrimination, including fair people processes, career development programs for women, and hiring more female engineers. The report concludes with a work plan and relevant dates for the study.

Running head: GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION
GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION AMONGST GOOGLE EMPLOYEES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION
Letter
Address (sender)
Date
Name (Receiver)
Position (Receiver)
Address (Receiver)
Dear Mr. (Receiver)
Request for information regarding report
The discrepancies in the pay scale between men and women in the various aspects of jobs as
seen nowadays can be tough to deal with. I work with my fiancée at the same company and
the differences in the pay scale for us are significantly high despite the positions being the
same. I can understand that according to the requirement criteria the educational
qualifications play a role but after working for three years and being promoted to the same
position, the discrepancy should not exist, is what I think.
The attached report is an analysis of the gender pay based discrepancy that has been
highlighted in the context of Google and shows how even the major tech conglomerates are
not free from the clutches of gender based pay discrepancy. The report highlights the constant
claim that women are getting underpaid and substantiates that with a report that google
published themselves. The report highlights, with support from the google analytics that the
percentage differences are significantly high in terms of hourly as well as quarterly pay
bands.
The sources for this report were various academic journals that supported the theoretical
backdrop of the issue, followed by Google’s survey and internal study reports that
highlighted the numerical information in detail.

2GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION
The solution section of the report has stated some considerations that Google has put forward
to counter the issues that they have faced as well as mitigate any future issues pertaining to
the same case. I would like to request a call for action regarding evaluating the steps and
checking if the proposed solution is in accordance with the benefit for all.
Sincerely
………..
Name.

3GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION
Abstract
A recent series of lawsuits against google has placed the world’s largest technological
conglomerate at a quite precarious ground. As of late 2018 to early 2019, cases have been
filed against google on the grounds of gender based pay discrimination. A recent internal
report published by Google highlights that some male software engineers were found to be
undercompensated in comparison to their peers who were performing similar jobs. These
claims and lawsuits come at a time when reports had appeared of ex Android leader being
offered a $ 90 million severance package after the reports against him of a certain sexual
misconduct were found to be credible. This report looks at the recent gender pay based
discrepancies that have surfaced concerning Google and attempts to analyse the efficacy of
the proposed solutions.

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Introduction
A recent series of lawsuits against google has placed the world’s largest
technological conglomerate at a quite precarious ground. As of late 2018 to early 2019, cases
have been filed against google on the grounds of gender based pay discrimination. A recent
internal report published by Google highlights that some male software engineers were found
to be undercompensated in comparison to their peers who were performing similar jobs.
These claims and lawsuits come at a time when reports had appeared of ex Android leader
being offered a $ 90 million severance package after the reports against him of a certain
sexual misconduct were found to be credible. Gender based discriminations in global
conglomerates have always surfaced and with valid reasons, however there are certain
underpinnings in these reports that contribute to their credibility or invalidation. In this
report, Google’s case of gender based pay scale discrimination will be analysed over certain
external and internal case studies as well as published reports over the period of past two
years.
Questions to be answered in this report
The questions that would be answered in this report would be comprising of the
following three questions:
 What are the various points of discrimination across the two genders in the workplace.
 What are the main things that should be done in order to make sure that such instances
of discrimination could come to an end?
 What effect does gender discrimination have in the workplace?
Background
Gender based pay differences are not uncommon incidents (Graf, Brown & Patten,
2018). There have been ample reports and studies that highlighted the impact of gender based

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discriminations of the employees in global Multi national Companies, with women being at
the disadvantaged edge of the spectrum. The gap is more vividly visible in the technological
companies and organisations (Auspurg et al., 2017). Reports indicate that almost 40% of the
workers in technological organisations believe that the gender based pay gap has increased
significantly in the last one and a half years (Fortin et al., 2017). Moreover, as far as
adjustments were considered, only 15% of the employees reported that their current job
organisation has adjusted the salaries of their female employees (Blau, 2016). Furthermore, in
telecommunication and software technology (Fernandez & camper, 2017), less than half of
the employees surveyed report that their employer was taking the gender pay gap issue with
serious consideration whereas 37 % of employees even said that they would quit their current
job and apply at a company where the gender pay gaps were disclosed and effective steps to
bridge that were taken (Sax et al., 2017).
Recently, two distinct reports have surfaced that are in contradiction with one another.
One October 2018 report indicates to a large audience of women who worked for Google
California had sued the company based on gender based pay differences, and advanced a
class action lawsuit against the company. The lawsuit was backed by their civil rights
attorney who indicated that the Silicon Valley based corporation has confirmed that the
lawsuit would cover a rough estimate of 8,300 women working at Google ("Gooogle UK's
gender pay gap - and our commitment to closing it", 2017). This class action is expected to
pressurise the company further based on the past allegations against them surrounding gender
and racial discrimination as well as sexual misconduct. Alternately, a recent February report
has highlighted that the gender pay gap was in favour of women and men were being
undercompensated for the similar tasks that they were performing. While the former claim
and allegation stands in correlation with several of Google’s internal reports in their
establishments around the world, the latter is backed by Google’s internal study and

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announcements that explain the validity of the claims. According to a November, 2018
report, thousands of Google’s employees from more than 20 global offices walked out as a
protest against their repeated cases of sexual misconduct and discrimination. In a 2017 report,
Google UK addressed the gender pay gap ("Gooogle UK's gender pay gap - and our
commitment to closing it", 2017) and established their commitment to closing it. The report
showed significant discrepancy, highlighting a 17 % gap in the mean hourly pay between
men and women and a 43 % gap in the mean bonus pay between them. Regarding the quartile
pay bands, the upper and upper middle quartiles showed a 22 % (women) against 78 % (men)
and a 25 % (women) against 75 % (men) respectively. As a statement, google UK’s median
gender pay gap was identified as sixteen percent in favour of men, in comparison to the
national average of 18.4 % in the whole UK. These findings stood in direct contrast with
Google’s own analytics which showed that there was a statistically zero significant pay
difference based on gender ("Gooogle UK's gender pay gap - and our commitment to closing
it", 2017).
However, in the next one year, the claims shifted against men and the newer claims
suggested that men were getting underpaid by Google in some of its Global offices, including
silicon valley. After study, Google made adjustments for a total of 10,667 employees for a
total of $ 9.7 Million to overrule the underpaid wages as found in the study, even though the
amount allocation to men still remained unclear. Lauren Barbato, the Lead Analyst for Pay
Equity, People Analytics, at Google announced on March 2019 that there were two reasons
why the pay equity analysis required more adjustments in 2018 than 2017. Firstly, the 2018
analysis highlighted one particularly large job code (level 4 Software Engineer) that was
taken for adjustment. Men in this job code were highlighted for adjustments because they
received a lower sum as discretionary fund than women (Barbato, 2018). Secondly, the 2018
analysis implemented a new hire analysis in order to look for any discrepancies in the offers

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being made to new employees, which accounted for almost 49% of the total amount of
dollars that was spent on overall adjustments (Barbato, 2018).
Methods
A variety of reports based on gender based discriminations and reports and studies
published by Google were analysed from the spectrum of pay scale differences and job
allocations. The sources were mostly reports that were gathered from various online websites
and Google’s own analytics results and publications.
Scope
The parameters of the report include gender pay differences as highlighted in recent
reports and claims. The reports indicate two contrasting aspects in the timeline of one year
where the pay gap shifted from favouring men to (allegedly) favouring women. The
limitations of the study include the unavailability of independent resources and studies that
are published. Given that the case is comparatively new and includes instances within the
past two years, the most efficient source for the report was identified to be Google’s internal
publications and secondary sources that support theoretical underpinnings of the study.
Recommendations
There should be distinct gender discriminatory aspects to address, first where women
are at the receiving end of the discrimination and second, where the men are at the receiving
end of the discrimination. Google UK has highlighted specific steps that they have taken and
are taking to ensure that the gap is closed.

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Firstly, Google should be setting up people processes to be fair and equitable for its
employees. They have emphasised that the pay is impacted by both performance rating and
promotion status. They have claimed to use data to structure their pay based decisions as well
as provide adequate amount of training and knowledge to their employees to overcome bias.
Secondly, the aspect of developing and progressing the functionality of their women
employees have been highlighted. They have stated to implement career development and
executive sponsorship programmes in the UK as well as globally to support the women on
their path to success. They have proposed that regular leadership summits will be held
alongside cared development opportunities and mentorship offers.
Thirdly, they should propose to hire more female engineers and leaders in order to
foster a culture where they can thrive. Here they have also highlighted the challenge that the
significant majority of computer science graduates in the UK and rest of the world were men,
which has also been stated as a crucial reason behind the discrepancy in the gender pay based
equity. Thus they have proposed to partner with more women in technological organisations
to reach more diverse candidate pools as well as offer travel grants in order to provide access
to development and networking opportunities.
Work plan
The work plan includes working on Saturdays, with time feasibility in mind, keeping
in mind the main thing that has to be done is to make sure that the time period is lean in
nature, with no major activity going on at the time. The time has to be set for morning so that
people can enjoy their weekends.
S.No Date Time Day Room
1 6th July 2019 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5A
2 5th Oct 2019 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5A
3 30th Nov 2019 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5B

9GENDER PAY DISCRIMINATION
4 5th April 2020 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5B
5 20th June 2020 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5B
6 24th Oct 2020 10:00 – 11:00 Saturday 5B
Cost plan
S.No. Category Cost(CAD)
1 Guest Lecturer 1000
2 Room Booking 2500
3 Hiring a Human Resource manager 17000
Conclusion
In conclusion, Google has shown that discrimination of gender based pay is not a
factor that can be overlooked. There are critical underpinnings that concern the case of salary
equity and major corporations in a present day context must provide detailed attention to
them. The report also provides evidence that disclosure of pay based reports and
transparency regarding claims of discrimination are beneficial for employee retention.

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References
Auspurg, K., Hinz, T., & Sauer, C. (2017). Why should women get less? Evidence on the
gender pay gap from multifactorial survey experiments. American Sociological
Review, 82(1), 179-210.
Barbato, L. (2018). Ensuring we pay fairly and equitably. Retrieved 1 September 2019, from
https://www.blog.google/inside-google/company-announcements/ensuring-we-pay-
fairly-and-equitably/
Blau, F. D. (2016). Gender, inequality, and wages. OUP Catalogue.
Fernandez, R. M., & Campero, S. (2017). Gender sorting and the glass ceiling in high-tech
firms. Ilr Review, 70(1), 73-104.
Fortin, N. M., Bell, B., & Böhm, M. (2017). Top earnings inequality and the gender pay gap:
Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Labour Economics, 47, 107-123.
Gooogle UK's gender pay gap - and our commitment to closing it. (2017). Retrieved 1
September 2019, from
https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/diversity.google/en//static/pdf/uk-gender-
pay-report-2017.pdf
Graf, N., Brown, A., & Patten, E. (2018). The narrowing, but persistent, gender gap in
pay. Pew Research Center, April, 9.
Sax, L. J., Lehman, K. J., Jacobs, J. A., Kanny, M. A., Lim, G., Monje-Paulson, L., &
Zimmerman, H. B. (2017). Anatomy of an enduring gender gap: The evolution of
women’s participation in computer science. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(2),
258-293.