Wide salary ranges in job postings discourage women from applying, Cornell research shows

Pay transparency laws are spreading. As of 2025, fifteen U.S. states and Washington, D.C., require employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings, and many companies elsewhere have adopted the practice voluntarily. The intent is straightforward: give workers better information, close pay gaps across gender and race. But according to a new study from Cornell University, the way these ranges are presented may be undermining that goal -- particularly for women.

Narrower ranges, stronger female preference

Alice Lee, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornell, led four studies examining how pay range width affects application decisions and negotiation behavior. The findings, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, are consistent across all four: women show a significantly stronger preference for jobs with narrower salary ranges compared to men.

The first study analyzed an archival dataset of nearly 10 million U.S. job postings, documenting the extent of pay-range variation and its relationship to female workforce representation. The second tested gender differences in pay-range preferences among upper-level undergraduates about to enter the labor market. The third was a field experiment in which actual job seekers made real application decisions for a genuine job posting with different pay range disclosures.

The pattern held across methods: broader ranges attracted relatively fewer women.

Risk, negotiation, and compounding effects

Why do broader ranges deter women disproportionately? The research points to risk preference as a contributing factor. A wide range (say, $60,000 to $100,000) introduces more uncertainty about what salary will actually be offered. The studies found that women were more likely to interpret that uncertainty negatively and gravitate toward positions where the range was tighter and the likely outcome more predictable.

The downstream effects compound the problem. Applicants who chose positions with narrower salary ranges negotiated less assertively, were more satisfied with a midpoint salary offer, said they were less likely to negotiate at all, and when they did negotiate, 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."

Context closes the gap

The fourth study tested a potential solution. When job postings included additional context -- information about the typical starting salary and how final offers are determined -- the gender difference in application decisions disappeared. Women no longer showed a stronger preference for narrower ranges, and the gap in negotiation behaviors also closed.

"When that information was provided, we no longer observed the gender gap in application decisions, and it also eliminated the gap in negotiation behaviors," Lee said.

This suggests that the problem is not with pay transparency itself but with how it is implemented. Current laws require disclosure of a salary range but offer little guidance on how wide or narrow that range should be, or what additional context should accompany it. The result is that many employers post ranges broad enough to be nearly meaningless -- ranges that, this research suggests, differentially discourage female applicants.

Policy implications and study limits

"Pay transparency laws represent meaningful progress, but transparency alone isn't enough," Lee said. "How employers present pay information matters just as much as whether they disclose it."

The studies have some limitations worth noting. The archival dataset shows correlation between range width and female representation, not causation. The experimental studies, while more controlled, involve relatively short-term decision-making and may not capture how applicants behave when navigating multiple opportunities over weeks or months. The field experiment used a single job posting, and the results may vary across industries, seniority levels, and geographic markets.

Still, the practical implication is clear: employers who want their pay transparency efforts to actually promote equity should consider providing not just a range but context for that range. What does the typical offer look like? What factors determine where in the range a candidate lands? Without that information, broader ranges may be perpetuating the very disparities these laws were designed to eliminate.