Beyond the Gap: Women's 2026 compensation report

About the report:

A new analysis of Glassdoor reviews looks into how the gender pay gap — the difference in average earnings between men and women within a workforce — changes and doubles in size over the course of a woman’s career. At age 35, many women experience a structural shift where wage growth levels off. Our 2026 Beyond the Gap report explores why this happens, driven by market trends and caregiving burdens, and how women are "working the system" to redefine success. By prioritizing total compensation and career flexibility, some are turning a potential stall into a "second peak".

This report includes:

The age 35 pivot: How women are redefining career success
The structural reality: Data-backed insights into the mid-career wage gap
The Best Places to Work for Women 2026: Organizations committed to closing the gap

The age 35 pivot: How women are redefining career success

Stacia Doss, Senior Manager of Content Strategy and Optimization

At 35, something shifts: priorities change, and according to Glassdoor research, so does earning potential — but not equally.

An analysis of Glassdoor user data by our Economic Research team found that women’s wages stop growing roughly a decade before men’s, with most wage growth leveling off after age 35. For many women in their mid-30s and beyond, this wage leveling could feel like yet another barrier in a series of career challenges, but a collection of Glassdoor Community conversations and polls reveals a bigger picture: a growing group of women workers is rewriting the mid-career narrative entirely. They’re proving that this stage could be the start of your best chapter, shifting how they think about success and where they find meaning in their work.

Why do women’s wages level off?

The wage gap that widens for women in their 30s is largely structural.

“This gap is driven by trends in the broader market (jobs that tend to employ more women are typically lower paying), in the office (bias can drive pay and promotion gaps), and in the home (women still shoulder more caregiving work),” said Chris Martin, lead researcher at Glassdoor.

A Glassdoor Community poll revealed that women are nearly 10 percentage points less likely than men to feel comfortable aiming for roles above their current level*, which means fewer attempts at promotion. Negotiating for salary has become more challenging across genders, leaving many women stuck between wanting to advance and facing headwinds at every turn. Mid-career anxiety is peaking, especially among millennial women who are recalibrating their expectations.

But the data also shows that women are better at working the system when salary won’t budge.

A step-by-step guide to negotiating total compensation (beyond salary)

Another Glassdoor poll found that women are slightly less fearful about using benefits due to potential career consequences than men are (54% compared to 57%)**. When it comes to negotiating beyond salary, Community members across genders have shared several strategies for taking action. In fact, a separate poll found that 29% of users have negotiated for more flexibility when salary wasn’t an option.

When your wage leveling off feels inevitable, a total compensation package can give you real leverage. Hannah Williams of Salary Transparent Street notes that women often share salary information because they’ve experienced being underpaid and want to pay it forward for others through transparency. That same spirit of advocacy can be a powerful motivator when it’s time to negotiate for yourself. Here’s how to approach the conversation strategically, step by step.

Step 1: Reality check your trajectory

Compare your current wage growth against your past raises and industry norms using Glassdoor salary data. Identify whether you’ve already leveled off or if you still have room to push on salary. This clarity tells you where to focus your negotiation energy.

Step 2: Decide what you want most

Ask yourself what your next role needs to deliver: growth (title/skills), stability (security/ advancement), or freedom (flexibility)

Name one primary goal so negotiations stay focused.

Step 3: Take one “lever action” to negotiate beyond salary

When the salary conversation stalls, negotiate something else:

Additional PTO: “I asked for an extra week of PTO, and it was agreed to without any discussion,” said a Raytheon Technologies Corporation employee.
Relocation Support: “I have been extremely open to relocating. Sometimes I get a few months paid for as a relocation package, and I’ve gotten as much as 18 months for the duration of the contract,” one manager shared.
Signing Bonus: “PTO and signing bonus are the biggest things I focus on. I once also negotiated eligibility for an annual bonus by getting them to backdate my start date a few days,” added a senior manager.

Each move creates real financial value without requiring the employer to budge on base salary.

What “peak” really looks like after 35

The women thriving after 35 have decoupled their worth from job titles. Whether they were asked about career pivots or how their mindsets about work shifted in their 30s, women in Glassdoor Community shared what that actually looks like in practice.

A Licensed Realtor in her mid-50s switched careers for a better life: she chose Real Estate and gained more time and flexibility. A journalist at 35 earning less than before found happiness by escaping the 9-to-5 for work she loves in a city she loves.

One woman made a breakthrough: she stopped comparing herself to other women in their 30s. Another realized her job isn’t her personality — she decoupled her worth from her job title and paycheck.

These aren’t stories of women settling for less. They’re stories of women choosing differently, and that distinction changes everything.

The 20/30/40 framework for career longevity

A Program Manager shared a framework for thinking about career progression differently:

20s: Trial and error.
30s: Validation and skill-building. You gain clarity about your strengths and weaknesses.
40s: Confidence and clarity. You know who you are and what you won’t tolerate.

Your 30s aren’t your peak; they’re when you stop guessing and start knowing.

Best companies for women’s career advancement

Structural wage gaps aren’t inevitable. Forward-thinking companies invest in internal mobility and caregiver support to close the gender gap. To find organizations that support your “second peak,” check out our list of Best Places to Work for Women.

Methodology

*This poll ran from January 15, 2026 through January 20, 2026, and was answered by over 2,500 U.S. professionals. Respondents could answer with either “Yes,” or “No, ” to the question, “Do you feel comfortable aiming for roles above your current level?”

**This poll ran from January 28, 2026 through January 30, 2026, and was answered by over 2,300 U.S. professionals. Respondents could answer with either “Yes,” or “No, ” to the question, “Have you ever worried that using benefits (leave, PTO, flexible hours) would hurt your career?”

Research: The pay gap grows throughout a woman’s career

Chris Martin, Lead Researcher, Worklife Trends

- The gender pay gap grows from 12% for workers with 0 years of experience to 19% for workers with 10 years of experience and 25% for workers with 30 years of experience.
- In the first ten years, a “within-role” difference grows, where women start earning 4% less than men with the same experience performing similar roles.
- Women’s earnings stall in their mid-30s, and men’s continue to grow throughout their 40s. The within-role difference is mostly flat during this period, so the difference reflects that men are more likely to advance into new roles with higher pay.
- On Glassdoor, women’s overall ratings were 3.2% lower than men’s in 2025, though this engagement gap has been closing since its peak of 4.9% in 2022.
- The biggest gender gap was in compensation & benefits (3.3%), though women’s ratings were lower across all workplace sub-factors.
In this research, we illuminate how a gender pay gap grows and changes over the course of a woman’s career. The gender pay gap represents how much less women earn than men. The American Association of University Women estimated the gender pay gap at 19% in 2025 among full-time workers.

How the gender pay gap grows over time

Using millions of Glassdoor salary reviews, we calculated the gender pay gap for workers as they progress throughout their career. The chart below shows the total pay gap (the area below the yellow curve, including the pink section), and the within-role pay gap (the area in pink). The height of the curve shows how much less women earn than men on average.
Much of the pay gap can be explained by differences in the types of roles men and women hold, with male-dominated roles tending to pay more than female-dominated roles. The within-role pay gap leverages Glassdoor’s salary model, which controls for factors that can explain wages (the job title, industry, location, and more), to predict a salary for each worker and compare it to their reported salary. The pink area shows the difference in how men’s and women’s average salaries compare to those benchmarks, giving us an idea of how much less a woman tends to earn than their male counterparts in similar positions.

We can see that the gap grows substantially as career experience increases. In their first roles, (those with zero years of experience), men earn 12% more than women – but that gap is entirely explained by factors other than gender. There is no within-role difference. As we move up to ten years of experience, however, the wage gap grows to 19% – with half of that growth attributed to within-role differences, which now account for a 4% gap.In the next stage, the pay gap grows – but within-role differences hold relatively steady, rising only from 4% to 5% as we progress to 30 years of experience. The overall gender pay gap widens to 25%, reflecting more differences in the roles & responsibilities that men take on at work.

Reviewing wage levels and not just the gap, we can see that men’s earnings continue to grow during this career stage while women’s plateau. Women’s earnings essentially stop growing in their late 30s, while men’s continue to grow steadily throughout their 40s. This is associated with a life stage where researchers have found that many women — mothers in particular — tend to earn less as they work fewer hours or seek less demanding jobs. Even when women intensively re-enter the workforce, they cannot make up for the lost time — and women who never had children and remained fully active in the workforce still tend to earn significantly less than men in their 50s.

Women are less satisfied with their careers

Women tend to give lower ratings in their Glassdoor reviews of their employers than men. In 2025, Women’s average overall ratings of their employers was 3.49, compared to 3.60 for men – a 3.3% difference. Average ratings between the groups move up and down together, and the gap narrowed, and the gap was widest in 2022 at 4.9%.
Glassdoor reviews also include workplace sub-factors, so workers can indicate that their workplace is great for career opportunities but awful for work-life balance, for example. Across all of these sub-factors, we find that women give lower ratings than men. The overall rating gap is one of the largest, but the largest difference is for compensation and benefits ratings.It’s not just that women are stuck in careers with less satisfying options. Our research last year showed that women often gave lower ratings than their male peers at the same company, and that women gave lower ratings in all sectors.

Best Places to Work for Women 2026

The gender pay gap in the workplace remains a critical challenge for women. But a growing number of companies are actively working to redefine success and compensation for women, going “Beyond the Gap” to create truly inclusive and supportive environments.

Employee Reviews praise these companies for their commitment to equitable pay, comprehensive benefits, flexible work arrangements, and supportive career growth. These companies are leading the charge in fostering workplaces where women can thrive and define success on their own terms.

Here are some of the Best Places to Work for women and the key qualities employees say make them stand out:

#1 Crew Carwash

What employees like the most: