My Code Online

When Satya Nadella , the CEO of MicrosoftCorp., was asked Thursday for advice he’d give women who don’t feel comfortable asking their boss for a raise, he offered a Zen-like response used by managers for millennia.
“It’s not really about asking for the raise,” he said, “but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along.”

In other words, do a good job and you’ll be recognized. That advice has been offered at one time or another to employees in every industry. And it has the ring of truth.

But maybe that’s just not so.

Mr. Nadella’s comment set off a small storm because it was made at a function about women in computing. To some, Mr. Nadella seemed to suggest that women should submissively stay quiet, and effectively keep a back seat to male pay. This wasn’t his intention at all, Mr. Nadella later told Microsoft ’s staff in an email: “Without a doubt I wholeheartedly support programs at Microsoft and in the industry that bring more women into technology and close the pay gap.”

That pay gap fired up the controversy around Mr. Nadella. In a March survey by Citigroup and LinkedIn, fully a third of women respondents said the biggest indicator of progress for women in the workplace would be the elimination of gender wage disparity.

Depending on how you measure it—and this is also a subject of debate—the gap ranges from roughly 10 to 25 percentage points across the U.S. workplace. And the reason for it? Economists and sociologists have a long list of explanations, including job choice, career interruption, experience levels, who’s in a union, hours worked, discrimination, available child care, and more.

But asking for a raise? That’s a contributor too. Women don’t ask for a raise as often as men do.