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01/16/2026 | News release | Distributed by Public on 01/17/2026 10:31

Gender Wage Gap in Greater Boston Narrows, Research from BU and City Finds

Gender Wage Gap in Greater Boston Narrows, Research from BU and City Finds

In a sign of progress, drop in the wage gap comes as more women reach C-suite level jobs

In the past two years, companies in Greater Boston have made strides in closing the gender wage gap, which stands at 12 cents in 2025, according to data collected and analyzed by the Boston Women's Workforce Council and researchers at Boston University, including associate professor Neha Gondal (pictured). The data was presented at a conference at BU's Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences. Photo by Cydney Scott

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Gender Wage Gap in Greater Boston Narrows, Research from BU and City Finds

In a sign of progress, drop in the wage gap comes as more women reach C-suite level jobs

January 16, 2026
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The gender wage gap among companies in Greater Boston shrank by nearly half in the past two years-from 21 cents in 2023 to 12 cents in 2025-according to data collected and analyzed by the Boston Women's Workforce Council (BWWC) and Boston University researchers. The 2025 data means that for every dollar a man earns, a woman, on average, earns 88 cents.

This year's gap-the average difference in compensation between working men and working women-is the lowest it's been since the BWWC began collecting data more than a decade ago.

"That's something to be proud of," Neha Gondal, BU associate professor of sociology and a member of the University's Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, said during the BWWC's biennial conference, held at BU in December.

The BWWC, an organization housed at BU, partners with the office of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Greater Boston employers to close gender and racial wage gaps at the workplace.

The gap between genders increases, however, when performance pay or additional cash compensation-typically based on specific goals-are also taken into consideration. When that additional compensation is factored in, the wage gap grows to 18 cents, down from 30 cents in 2023.

Lauren Jones, the state's secretary of labor and workforce development, applauded this "first in the nation" data collection effort, one that enables lawmakers to "lead with data."

auren Jones, Massachusetts' secretary of labor and workforce development, applauded this "first in the nation" data collection effort, one that enables lawmakers to "lead with data."

"We certainly know that leading by our values is critically important, but being reminded of where we are and where we need to go-grounded in some data-is really important as we look to close the gender and racial wage gaps here in Massachusetts," she said.

One of the factors helping to narrow the gender wage gap, Gondal reported, is a substantial increase of women in senior-level roles over the last two years. The proportion of women in C-suite and executive positions rose by 7 percent, increasing women's representation in these higher-paying roles. "That's nothing to sneeze at," Gondal said.

Another factor is a significant decrease in men's salaries, in both base and total compensation, while women's salaries have remained fairly stable over the past two years. Researchers found that men's average performance pay decreased by 40 percent from 2023 to 2025.

"Our data don't allow us to get into why men's wages have declined whereas women's wages have remained stable, but this is certainly something worth exploring within your own organizations, and certainly conversations you could have in an ongoing way with BWWC," Gondal said.

While this year's gender wage data show encouraging progress toward pay equity, the racial wage gap data collected by the BWWC and BU showed persistent race-based inequity.

The racial wage gap climbed 4 cents-to 31 cents in 2025, compared to 27 cents in 2023. The data show that average base compensation for employees of color (a term that includes Asian, Hispanic, and Black employees) was $30,000 less than the average earnings of white employees. In addition, white employees earned twice as much in performance pay as employees of color.

"In absolute numbers, the racial wage gap is almost three times as high as the gender wage gap, and so we can see that the work we're doing just isn't enough-we're moving in the opposite direction," Gondal said.

"Our experience gives us a unique lens on the vital role workplace equity plays in driving economic growth in Massachusetts," said Kim Borman, executive director of the BWWC (left), with Gondal (right).

A major factor in this discrepancy is that racial and ethnic minorities remain stubbornly overrepresented in low-paid jobs, such as laborers and operators, while white employees dominate higher-paid executive, managerial, and professional roles, the research shows.

This alone doesn't account for the widening gap, however: the data show that even in comparable roles, employees of color earn significantly less in base compensation and performance pay than white employees.

"The numbers are stunning," Gondal said. "This is where we need to think creatively to fix these problems."

This year's data is based on 125,000 employee records across 101 organizations in the Greater Boston area, said Gondal, who collaborated with BWWC staff to analyze the data. The figures represent about 11 percent of employees in the metro area. "While that's fantastic, our goal is always to include more employees as we go forward-more data means better data," she said.

To participate in the study, organizations voluntarily provide data on all their full-time, Greater Boston-based employees on a biennial basis. The data are anonymized and aggregated using a unique encryption program developed by researchers at the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering at BU. This system gives stakeholders-such as policymakers, elected officials, and labor force researchers-critical insight into actual salary and demographic information, while keeping individual and organization-level data confidential. The system is an essential component to the ongoing success of the data collection efforts of the BWWC.

"Employers, large and small, trust us," said Kim Borman, executive director of the BWWC. "They trust that we collect their data and do not point fingers at them. They know integrity is foundational to us, that we aggregate data to provide paths upward for every worker, especially women and people of color.

"Our experience gives us a unique lens on the vital role workplace equity plays in driving economic growth in Massachusetts," she added. "Our purpose is to help every worker in Massachusetts see a working path upward. Our purpose is also to attract workers elsewhere to Boston and Massachusetts because they see opportunities to be better off."

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Boston University published this content on January 16, 2026, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on January 17, 2026 at 16:31 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]