Women Receive Less Pay for College Internship

By: WE Team | Wednesday, 19 August 2020

New research conducted by Binghamton University, State University of New York has found that women receive 34 percent less incentive as compared to men for their college internship. The study was prompted to examine the issue that the paid internship often lead to high paying jobs and post-graduation thus, women continue to earn less than men of the same role despite having higher qualification.

John Zilvinskis, Assistant Professor of Student Affairs Administration, Binghamton University, says, "This finding aligns with general scholarship regarding inequity in compensation, and our findings demonstrate that discrepancies by gender can occur in the college internship process as well." 
Jennifer Gillis, Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University states,  "Although tremendous strides have been made for women in the workplace, we must continue to identify points of inequality."

In order to encourage equality in pay for college internship among male and female students, Assistant Vice President for Student Success Kelli Smith has recommended implicit bias training for the student reside in the University. Also, she has advised the students to focus on career decision making, faculty or career advisor, analyzing universities, and to be transparent in sharing pay data disaggregated by gender. Kelli also stressed working with employers to create awareness and to offer educational sessions for students searching for internship and salary negotiation.

Kelli Smith says, "Since career advising and support is everyone's business within a university setting -- not just career centers -- it is important that all members directly serving students be informed of such findings to effect change." She continues, "Career centers can play a leading role with both trainings for campus staff, faculty and employer partners, and designing relevant student educational content and programming."