Pay range transparency laws that are intended to promote pay equity can inadvertently deter women from applying for those positions, thus perpetuating gender gaps in the workforce, according to research from the Cornell ILR School.
"Across our four studies, we consistently found that women show a stronger preference for jobs with narrower salary ranges compared to men, and that this preference is associated with less assertive negotiation behaviors. In other words, the way these laws are being implemented may be perpetuating the very pay gaps they were designed to close," said Alice Lee, assistant professor of organizational behavior.
Lee is the lead author of "The Implications of Pay Range Transparency on Job Application Preferences and Negotiations," published Feb. 16 in the Journal of Applied Psychology. Tae-Youn Park, director of research at Cornell's Institute for Compensation Studies, and Sungyong Chang, assistant professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, are co-authors.
As of 2025, a total of 15 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., have passed laws requiring employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings, and many employers outside those areas are following suit. The intent is to give workers better information and help close pay gaps across gender and race. However, these laws offer little guidance on how wide or narrow these ranges should be, and the range can shape job application decisions, according to Lee.
In addition, the research team found the pay range had subsequent effects on negotiation behaviors, as applicants who chose positions with narrower salary ranges consistently negotiated less assertively, and they were more satisfied with a midpoint salary offer. The applicants also said they were less likely to negotiate, and when they did, asked for less money.
"This matters because starting salaries have compounding consequences," Lee said. "Raises, bonuses and future opportunities are often tied to your initial salary, so a lower starting point doesn't just affect your first paycheck. It ripples through your career."
To investigate these patterns, the researchers conducted four studies, spanning archival data and experiments with both prospective and actual job seekers.
In their first study, the team analyzed a large archival dataset of nearly 10 million U.S. job postings to document the extent of pay-range variation and examine the relationship between range width and female representation in the workforce.
In the second study, they recruited upper-level undergraduates about to enter the labor market to test whether gender differences in pay-range preferences emerged among prospective job seekers and whether risk preference could explain the pattern.
In the third study, the researchers conducted a field experiment in which actual job-seekers made real application decisions for a genuine job posting with different pay range disclosures.
In the fourth study, the researchers introduced an experimental intervention that explicitly clarified the typical starting salary and the process by which final offers are determined, testing whether reducing uncertainty would affect application decisions and negotiation behaviors.
The results of the fourth study suggest a concrete way companies can address this issue.
"We found that when job ads included some additional context about the typical starting salary and how final offers are determined, it mitigated women's stronger preference for narrower pay ranges," Lee said. "When that information was provided, we no longer observed the gender gap in application decisions, and it also eliminated the gap in negotiation behaviors.
"Pay transparency laws represent meaningful progress, but transparency alone isn't enough," she said. "How employers present pay information matters just as much as whether they disclose it."
Julie Greco is the communications director for the School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
