The Advisors' Blog

– Liz Dunshee

Two activists recently announced progress in campaigns to close the gender pay gap. In this summary (pg. 3), the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility describes engagements with seven companies – four of which agreed to enhance pay equity disclosure.

And the NYC Comptroller & NYC Pension Funds have continued a 2017 initiative with healthcare & insurance companies – proposing that they provide annual disclosure on gender & race/ethnicity pay gaps. Recently, they announced more progress from the resulting engagements. Since that initiative launched, a total of 15 companies have committed to improving pay equity and/or increasing transparency – e.g. by disclosing how they determine whether disparities exist. The announcement notes:

Transparency regarding gender pay disparities at US companies is rare. According to some studies, less than 10% of the largest 875 public US companies have conducted pay equity studies, and only 54 have established a policy for diversity and equal opportunity.

In its second year, the Comptroller’s pay equity initiative calls on insurance & healthcare companies – which have the largest adjusted pay inequities of major US industries – to publicly commit to ending the gender pay gap and increase transparency on existing disparities.