Women in Hospitality Are Paid 30% Less Than Men for the Same Roles, New Analysis Shows

We know that the gender pay gap remains in many if not most industries. But it’s easy to fix.

BY KIT EATON @KITEATON

Pay equality sounds simple and fair on paper: if two people are performing equally well doing the same job they deserve the same pay—no matter who each person is. But reality is unfair and messy compared to paper economics, and one way this manifests is that many businesses feel it’s acceptable to pay women less than men for the same job. New data shows this pay gap is particularly bad in the hospitality industry. The cocktail of unfairness and industry reliance on women is so bad, in fact, that it should prompt you to audit your own pay fairness policies, even if your business is in a different sector.

In the hospitality business, women make just 70 percent of the pay that men do, on average, when working the same roles. This data was collected from the Bureau of Labor Statistics by Miami-based hospitality job platform OysterLink, and its report underlines how unfair it is by noting that women make up around 54 percent of food service workers and close to six in 10 of all hotel and accommodation staff. In fact, OysterLink’s investigation found a “persistent and in some roles widening gender wage gap” across the industry.

The report quoted OysterLink’s general manager Milos Eric on the “hustle matters more than background” image the industry has. This is “largely true” for entry level work, Eric noted, pointing out “the gap for dishwashers and fast food workers is minimal.” But “the further up the career ladder you go, the wider the gap gets,” Eric said, noting “women are doing the work of running this industry and not seeing it reflected in their paychecks.”

The data also shows female fast food workers and counter workers earn 98.5 cents per $1 compared to men, a slight difference that still results in a pay gap of $468 a year. This may reflect the “one size fits all” pay policies of fast food giants who employ millions of people across the country. 

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But when it comes to bartending—a business which you may imagine includes many smaller companies with their own pay policies—women make just over 70 cents for every dollar male bartenders make. This results in an average pay gap of more than $18,500 a year. The report noted this is “a wider wage gap than the national average across all occupations.” It’s particularly unfair since “bartending is one of the highest-earning front-line hospitality roles—and one where women make up a significant share of the workforce.”

Meanwhile in food service management roles, women earn only around 73 cents per dollar that males earn, resulting in an annual pay gap of over $17,600. This is a stat that should “concern the industry most,” Eric noted. That’s because while you may be able to “rationalize some of the front-line differences through tip variability or hours” this simply can’t explain the pay gap for male and female managers doing the same work. This points to “a structural problem.” in the industry, Eric said.

But unequal pay based on gender may remain “a structural problem” across the entire country.

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