Women's pay: "accumulation of disadvantage"
This Wall Street Journal story (subscription required) puts the cost of not negotiating for higher pay in perspective, especially when it comes to women who either don't ask for better pay or succumb to various arguments when they do ask but unsuccessfully:
In most workplaces, it still pays to be a man. Women often are less adroit at winning better salaries, assignments and jobs -- either because they don't ask or because they cave in when they do.
Skipping or bungling a single negotiation can inflict a huge penalty. A 22-year-old woman who fails to get her first job offer of $25,000 boosted by $5,000 stands to lose more than $568,000 by age 60, says Linda Babcock, a Carnegie Mellon University economics professor. Men are eight times as likely as women to bargain over starting pay. "It's the accumulation of disadvantage," she says.