The Paradox of the Contented Female Worker: Why Are Women Satisfied with Lower Pay?

Although women in general are aware of and concerned about the gender wage gap, individual women do not report significantly greater dissatisfaction with their pay, which has been termed the paradox of the contented female worker (Crosby 1982). The current study proposes a model of the factors leading to pay satisfaction to explain this paradox based on Major's (Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 26:293-355, 1994) work on entitlement. In general, support was found for the hypothesized relationships. The results of this study indicate that although women have lower pay, they do not necessarily feel entitled to higher pay, and thus are not dissatisfied with pay. Women also tended to select female referents who are lower paid, which may account for some of their lower feelings of entitlement. Additionally, although men and women did not differ in the value placed on pay, value of pay was found to relate negatively to pay satisfaction. Based on these findings, researchers interested in pay satisfaction are encouraged to investigate additional personal and situational characteristics that affect referent choice and perceptions of fair pay.