Diving a little deeper than this overall picture, for start ups, the move from growth stage to late stage is particularly influential in pay equity across genders.
Ravio’s data shows that the overall gender pay gap in the fintech industry is 33%. However, the picture changes significantly when we follow fintechs as they move from being a growth stage (series A & B) to a late stage (series C+) company:
Why might this be?
Well, at this stage in an average fintech company’s growth, they typically start to hire more management roles. The proportion of payroll costs for management jumps up by 4 percentage points – from 19% in the growth stage to 23% in the late stage.
At the same time, the percentage of women in these management roles decreases from 41% to 28%, indicating that it is men who are accounting for those additional management hires.
This is further backed up when we look at average salaries.
For men, the median annual salary increases from £55,250 at growth stage to £63,500 at late stage. But, for women there is very little change in average salary, from £44,350 to just £46,300 – they begin to experience stagnation in pay and career progression.
So, the key learning here is to invest in inclusive hiring as soon as possible during a growth stage, because otherwise that gap will become a huge delta once you reach late stage, becoming much more difficult to address.
<aside> 💡 Further reading:
Through their Rewards Awards Ravio celebrate companies that are doing a great job in driving change on compensation, and this includes a diversity category.
Ravio identified three winners for their 2023 awards: what3words, Farewill, and Team Liquid. Here’s a few examples of the actions these companies are taking to improve gender diversity and pay equity in their workforce.