--- title: Yet Another Survey Shows That One of the Best Ways to Retain Female Workers Is to Pay Them More description: Women don't leave just because of work-life balance issues. They leave because they're not paid or promoted as much as men. authors: - name: Alicia Adamczyk url: https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 201 covers: - Career Advice - Banking - Business - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/aliciaadamczyk former_staff: true published: '2016-08-08T13:36:42.000Z' modified: '2024-02-23T09:56:10.000Z' section: Career Advice tags: - pubdesk - Women & Money word_count: 296 canonical: https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![160308_CAR_WomenCareerChallenges_Money_GEN](https://img.money.com/2016/04/160308_car_womencareerchallenges_money_gen.jpg) Companies eager to woo female employees have been focusing on providing perks like more flexible work hours, in the hopes that better work-life balance will help retain them. But yet another survey shows that better balance, whatever that is, isn't the key to keeping top female talent: It's pay and promotions. A survey of 1,613 women by the career site Fairygodboss, which was [shared exclusively](http://fortune.com/2016/08/08/this-what-working-women-want-even-more-than-equal-pay/) with our sister site *Fortune*, found that "Increase my pay" was the top response women gave when asked to "identify one thing that their employer could do to make them more likely to stay with the company." Promote more women into leadership was a close second, while "improve work-life balance/policies" came in last. In fact, 80% of respondents who said their companies treat men and women differently said "the biggest problem is the way promotions are doled out," according to *Fortune*. ***Read More: These 10 Cities Are the Best for Women in the Workplace*** This is in-line with a recent [global survey](http://www.icedr.org/research/documents/15_millennial_women.pdf) of women in their 30s that found the workers leave companies when they are not paid well or promoted. "Surprisingly, young women identified finding a higher paying job, a lack of learning and development, and a shortage of interesting and meaningful work as the primary reasons why they may leave," that report reads. Not that they couldn't hit up happy hour with friends. At the same time, the study found that the leaders of companies think women leave because of work-life balance issues and to raise children (while men leave because of compensation). Clearly, there's a disconnect between female workers and their bosses. But as *New York* magazine's Ann Friedman wrote at the time, there's an easy way to solve the female talent pipeline issue: [Just pay women more](http://nymag.com/thecut/2016/03/study-women-30s-leave-jobs-because-money.html). ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Career Advice", "item": "https://money.com/career-advice/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Salaries and Wages", "item": "https://money.com/salaries-and-wages/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Yet Another Survey Shows That One of the Best Ways to Retain Female Workers Is to Pay Them More" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/", "name": "Yet Another Survey Shows That One of the Best Ways to Retain Female Workers Is to Pay Them More", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-08-08T13:36:42.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-02-23T09:56:10.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Yet Another Survey Shows That One of the Best Ways to Retain Female Workers Is to Pay Them More", "articleSection": "Career Advice", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/04/160308_car_womencareerchallenges_money_gen.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1397, "caption": "160308_CAR_WomenCareerChallenges_Money_GEN" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Alicia Adamczyk", "url": "https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/alicia-adamczyk/#author", "image": "https://img.money.com/2016/01/alicia-headshot-2.jpg?quality=85&w=640&h=640&crop=1", "email": "alicia.adamczyk@moneymail.com", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/aliciaadamczyk" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-08-08T13:36:42.000Z", "description": "Women don't leave just because of work-life balance issues. They leave because they're not paid or promoted as much as men.", "abstract": "Women don't leave just because of work-life balance issues. They leave because they're not paid or promoted as much as men.", "@id": "https://money.com/pay-promote-women-more-fairy-god-boss/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-02-23T09:56:10.000Z", "wordCount": 296, "keywords": [ "pubdesk", "Women & Money" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Career counseling", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Career_counseling" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Wages and salaries", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wages_and_salaries" ] } ] } ] } ```