There are laws in 15 states and Washington, D.C., requiring employers to post salary ranges in job listings, and some employers post ranges voluntarily. The idea is simple: if workers can see the salary before applying, they are better positioned to negotiate, which can ultimately help narrow gender and racial pay gaps.
A new paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology suggests that this policy’s good intentions may backfire, depending on the range of the published salary.
The research combined four separate studies: an analysis of nearly 10 million U.S. job postings, a study of undergraduates entering the job market, a field experiment with applicants responding to a job posting, and a study testing an intervention.
Across all four studies, the same pattern emerged: women strongly preferred job postings with narrower salary ranges compared to men. This preference, in turn, was associated with less assertive negotiation behaviors. Applicants who applied for jobs with narrower ranges were more satisfied with a midpoint offer, and when they did counter, they asked for less money.
“This matters because starting salaries have compounding consequences,” said Alice Lee, associate professor of organizational behavior at Cornell. “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.”
Alice J. Lee, Tae-Youn Park, professor at Sungkyunkwan University, and Sungyong Chang, assistant professor of management at Cornell, were co-authors on the paper.
The explanation comes down to uncertainty. A wide pay range—say, $60,000 to $110,000 for the same role—leaves applicants with less predictability about where their actual offer will land. The research finds that women, on average, tend to be more averse to this kind of financial uncertainty, a well-established finding in economics and psychology, explaining their stronger preference for narrower ranges. And because narrower ranges leave less visible room above a midpoint offer, applicants who choose them tend to negotiate less assertively.
Essentially, the research finds that laws meant to level the playing field may inadvertently contribute to disparities because employers have wide discretion in how broad their posted ranges can be. That variation can shape applicant behavior in gendered ways.
The fourth study in the paper offers an encouraging conclusion, though. It tested a simple intervention: providing additional context in job postings about the typical starting salary and how final offers are determined. In the study, adding that context was enough to eliminate the gender gap entirely, both in who applied and in how assertively they negotiated once an offer was on the table.
“These laws were designed to promote pay equity, and they can, but how employers implement them matters,” Lee said. “Our findings suggest that reducing the ambiguity around compensation can go a long way toward ensuring these policies achieve their intended goals.”
The take-home message: Posting a salary range is only the first step toward pay transparency. Employers who want their policies to support pay equity should include context, such as what a typical new hire actually earns and how the final number is decided.