Ban The Question About Past Salary

“Over the course of my professional career, I’ve been asked the dreaded salary question in about half a dozen job interviews”, writes editor and columnist Caitlin Fitzsimmons in the Australian newspaper The Age.

What are your salary expectations? Or even worse, what’s your current salary?

She is interested to hear that nine US states now have or are set to introduce full or partial bans on employers asking candidates about current salary during the hiring process.

So far, the question is still legal in Australia. In the Netherlands, where I live, it is too – some employers ask, others don’t. Fitzsimmons writes:

Perhaps it should be consigned to the dustbin of history along with questions about politics and pregnancy plans.

One low-paid job early in your career can mean you take years to catch up. It also entrenches the gender pay gap because female graduates typically command lower starting salaries than their male counterparts.

Men also appear to more easily get away with not answering the salary question. According to a study, women who were asked to disclose salary and refused were offered 1.8 percent less than women who were asked and did disclose. Meanwhile, men who refused to disclose when asked about salary history received an offer that was 1.2 percent higher than a man who did.