Salary Negotiations: A Catch-22 for Women

The higher a woman rises through a company’s ranks, the more backlash she faces if she negotiates her salary assertively—a phenomenon that contributes to the wide gender gap in the C-suite, new research suggests.

By analyzing data from more than 2,500 negotiators, Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Julian Zlatev and colleagues found evidence that women who felt empowered at the negotiation table were more likely to reach worse deals or no deal at all. The results held regardless of their negotiation partners’ gender.