Nearly all women surveyed (96%) said they believe a gender pay gap exists in advertising. Yet only about one-third believed they personally were being underpaid because of their gender.
Watts said that disconnect may reflect a psychological tension between acknowledging systemic inequity and wanting to believe one’s own workplace is fair.
“So much of our identity is tied to our work and our salary,” she said. “It can be easier to believe the industry has a problem in general than to accept that your own company might be treating you unfairly.”
The study also found that pay transparency remains limited across agencies. Nearly half of women surveyed said they do not understand how salary decisions are made at their organization, and more than two-thirds said they had worked at a company where employees were discouraged from discussing pay with colleagues, a practice that is illegal under federal labor law.
Where the gap gets made
Structural opacity, however, is only part of the picture.
One of the clearest patterns emerged when women attempted to address perceived pay inequities with their managers. Women who raised pay concerns with supervisors, who were predominantly male in the sample, were significantly more likely to encounter indifference or stalled conversations than male employees making similar requests.
“Women were going to their managers and asking about pay disparities, but the conversation often stopped there,” Watts said. “Managers would say they’d look into it or push it off, and nothing would happen.”
By contrast, male employees were more likely to receive direct answers about promotions or pay decisions, even when the outcome was negative.
“That gatekeeping point, where the conversation stops at the manager level, is one of the biggest places agencies could intervene,” Watts said.
Another striking finding involved workplace dynamics between male and female colleagues. The study found that men who reported being uncomfortable working closely with women tended to earn more than women overall, a pattern Watts attributes to homosocial reproduction: the tendency for leaders to reward and promote people who resemble themselves.
“If decision-makers feel more comfortable with people who remind them of themselves, those employees may get more opportunities, bigger projects, and promotions,” Watts said. “Over time, those advantages compound financially.”
UCLA’s Wayne said the insights into social dynamics were among the most significant to emerge from the study. “Too often, men default to comfort and familiarity, even when it quietly reinforces inequity,” she said. “Closing the gender pay gap means encouraging men to choose fairness over comfort, and there is still a ton of work to be done to get men on board and fix this continuing problem.”
