Women’s Reaction to the Gender Pay Gap: A Study of the Pakistan Telecommunication Sector

 The Gender wage gap has attracted the attention of a wide range of theoretical and empirical frameworks derived from a multitude of disciplines including, psychology, sociology, and economics. Human Resource Management, considering the gender wage gap's reported influences on employees‟ attitudes and behaviours in the work places, is now studying a variety of its aspects. This qualitative research study, conducted in the telecommunication sector of Pakistan, investigates women employees' perceptions regarding discriminatory pay practices and explores their attitudinal factors that might be responsible for the perpetuation of prevalent gender wage disparity in terms of acceptance / challenge to. Empirical data generated through purposive sampling, and by applying semi-structured interviews of women working in the private telecom sector, revealed that only a handful of women raised their voices or supported other women who stood up for their rights; a majority preferred to remain silent or accept the discrimination, even justifying it on account of various excuses. This accepting attitude of women serves to perpetuate discriminatory pay practices in the workplace.