Nancy Marshall-Genzer

The pay range runs from $130,000 to nearly $500,000 a year.

So where do you start negotiations?

That range isn't hypothetical.

It comes from an actual job listing on Indeed.

About 15 states have

past laws requiring companies to include salary ranges in job postings in part to help address wage gaps for women and people of color.

But new research from Cornell University suggests the way those salary ranges are written, especially how wide or narrow they are, can influence how applicants approach negotiations.

Alice Lee is an assistant professor of organizational behavior at Cornell and lead author of the study.

Alice joins us now.

Welcome.

Let's stick with that real world example for a minute.

Based on your research, how might someone, especially a woman, approach salary negotiations with a huge salary range like that?

Huh.

Okay.

So women prefer postings with narrow ranges.

Is that a problem?

I mean, are women hurt when they limit themselves that way?

Oh, so interesting.

So less likely to negotiate, lower salary in the end.

So could these pay range transparency laws actually be perpetuating the very pay gaps they were designed to close?