Feminine & Paid
Research
Women and Salary Negotiation: Findings from A Two-University Field Study in Springfield, Missouri
Introduction
Salary negotiation is frequently presented as a financial skill: research the market, determine an appropriate number, and make the ask. However, the decision to negotiate can occur long before numbers ever enter the conversation.
To better understand women’s experiences with salary negotiation, an in-person field study was conducted at two universities in Missouri: Drury University and Cox College.
The study examined women’s experiences with salary negotiation, including whether they had negotiated previously, what prevented those who had not from doing so, and what they believed would help them negotiate in the future.
Participants were asked the following questions:
· Have you ever negotiated your salary before?
· If yes, did you receive what you asked for?
· If no, what has stopped you from negotiating?
· What is one thing that would help you negotiate in the future?
Across both universities, 40 women participated in the study.
How the Study Was Conducted
The field study was conducted live and in person on May 11, 2026, at Drury University and Cox College in Springfield, Missouri.
Women were approached individually and first asked:
“Have you ever negotiated your salary before?
”Women who answered yes were then asked:
“Did you receive what you asked for?
”Women who answered no were asked:
“What has stopped you from negotiating?
”Participants were also asked:
“What is one thing that would help you negotiate in the future?”
Drury University
Participants
A total of 15 women participated in the field study at Drury University.
Of those 15 participants:
8 had previously negotiated their salary.
7 had never negotiated their salary.
This means 53.3% of Drury participants had previously negotiated, while 46.7% had not.
Among the eight women who reported having negotiated, six reported receiving what they asked for, while two did not. This represents a reported success rate of 75% among Drury participants who had negotiated.
Primary Reason Given for Not Negotiating
Among Drury participants who had not negotiated their salary, fear was the most frequently reported barrier.
Fear was reported more frequently than other individual barriers identified by participants.
The responses associated with fear included feelings of intimidation.
This finding is important because it suggests that for some women, the barrier to negotiation may exist before the negotiation itself begins. A woman may understand that salary can be negotiated and still have difficulty initiating that conversation because of the emotional discomfort associated with making the ask.
What Women Said Would Help
When Drury participants were asked what would help them negotiate in the future, overcoming nervousness was the most frequently reported response.
The relationship between these two findings is notable.
Fear was the most common barrier reported by women who had not negotiated, while overcoming nervousness was the most common response when women were asked what could help them negotiate in the future.
At Drury, the findings suggest fear is a barrier to initiating salary negotiation and helping women overcome that fear may increase their willingness to negotiate.
Cox College
Participants
A total of 25 women participated in the field study at Cox College.
Of those 25 participants:
11 had previously negotiated their salary.
14 had never negotiated their salary.
This means 44% of Cox College participants had previously negotiated, while 56% had not.
Among the 11 women who reported having negotiated, 9 reported receiving what they asked for, while 2 did not. This represents a reported success rate of approximately 81.8% among Cox participants who had negotiated.
Primary Reason Given for Not Negotiating
Among Cox College participants who had not negotiated their salary, the most frequently reported response was:
“I don’t know.”
Six of the 14 women who had not negotiated gave this response when asked what had stopped them.
This represents approximately 42.9% of Cox participants who had never negotiated.
The prevalence of this response is important because it reflects a different type of barrier than the one most frequently identified at Drury.
Rather than identifying a specific external obstacle, many Cox participants could not identify what had prevented them from negotiating at all.
This may suggest that non-negotiation is not always the result of a deliberate decision. For some women, negotiation may simply not have been something they had actively considered, prepared for, or understood how to approach.
What Women Said Would Help
At Cox College, experience was the most frequently reported response when participants were asked what would help them negotiate in the future.
Experience in their field was identified three times, more frequently than any other individual response.
Confidence was the second most frequently recorded response.
This finding suggests some participants associated greater professional experience with feeling more prepared to negotiate their salary.
Combined Findings
Across Drury University and Cox College, a total of 40 women participated in the field study.
Of those 40 women:
19 had previously negotiated their salary.
21 had never negotiated their salary.
Therefore, 47.5% of all participants had previously negotiated salary, while 52.5% had not.
In other words, slightly more than half of the women surveyed across the two universities reported that they had never negotiated their salary.
What Happened When Women Negotiated?
Of the 19 women who reported having previously negotiated, 15 reported receiving what they asked for.
Four reported that they did not.
That means approximately 78.9% of the women in this field study who had attempted to negotiate reported receiving what they asked for.
Although the sample is too small to use this figure to predict negotiation outcomes for women generally, the finding is noteworthy when considered alongside the fact that more than half of all study participants had never attempted to negotiate.
What Prevented Women From Negotiating?
The two universities produced different leading responses.
At Drury University, fear was the most frequently reported barrier.
At Cox College, the most frequently reported response was “I don’t know.”
When the responses from both universities are combined without grouping different answers into broader categories, “I don’t know” was the single most frequently recorded response, appearing seven times across the two studies.
The difference between the universities is important and should not be erased by combining the data.
The findings suggest that there may not be one universal reason women do not negotiate. Some women can clearly identify fear or intimidation as the barrier. Others didn’t have a reason at all.
What Women Believe Would Help
Participants also identified several factors they believed could help them negotiate in the future.
At Drury University, overcoming fear and nervousness was the most frequently reported response.
At Cox College, experience was the most frequently reported response.Across the combined data from both universities, the most frequent answers were experience in their field and confidence.
Overall, the findings suggest that women may feel more comfortable negotiating as they gain experience in their field and confidence in themselves.
Discussion
One of the most striking findings from the study was that many women who had never negotiated could not clearly identify what had stopped them. At Cox College, “I don’t know” was the most frequently reported response among women who had not negotiated. At Drury University, fear was the leading barrier.
At the same time, 52.5% of the 40 women surveyed had never negotiated their salary, while 78.9% of those who had negotiated reported receiving what they asked for.
This study cannot establish that negotiating will result in a successful outcome 78.9% of the time. The sample is too small and the study was not designed to estimate a population-wide success rate.
However, the contrast raises an important question. Many of the women who negotiated reported favorable outcomes, yet more than half of participants had never negotiated.
Women who reported that they had not negotiated identified different barriers across the two universities. At Drury, fear was the leading barrier, while overcoming nervousness was the most frequently cited factor that would help participants negotiate in the future.
At Cox College, many participants could not identify a specific reason they had not negotiated, while experience in their field was the most frequently cited factor that would help.
These findings suggest that salary negotiation education should address more than what women should ask for. It should also help women understand why negotiation matters, building confidence, overcoming fear and preparing for the conversation.
Limitations
The findings of this field study should be interpreted within several important limitations.
First, the sample was relatively small. Forty women participated across the two university sites. The results describe the experiences of these participants and should not be interpreted as representing all women.
Second, both studies were conducted at universities in Springfield, Missouri. Women in other geographic regions, institutions, industries, age groups, career stages, or socioeconomic circumstances may have different experiences with salary negotiation.
Third, participants were approached live and in person rather than selected using a randomized sampling procedure. The study used an in-person, non-random sampling approach. Because participants were not randomly selected from the broader population of women, the findings should not be generalized to all women.
Fourth, the study relied on self-reported information. Participants were asked to recall whether they had negotiated and whether they received what they asked for. The researchers did not independently verify participants’ previous compensation negotiations or their outcomes.
Fifth, the study did not define “salary negotiation” beyond the question presented to participants. Participants may therefore have interpreted negotiation differently. For example, one participant might consider requesting a higher starting salary a negotiation, while another might include requesting a raise after beginning employment.
Finally, participants who had not negotiated were asked an open-ended question about what had stopped them. Because responses were not selected from standardized predetermined categories, similar concepts may have been expressed using different language. The results presented here preserve the recorded categories rather than combining responses into broader themes.
These limitations should be considered when interpreting the findings. The study provides insight into the experiences of the women who participated and offers a foundation for future research with a larger and more diverse group of women.
Conclusion
Across two Missouri universities, 40 women were asked about their experiences with salary negotiation.
Slightly more than half—52.5%—reported that they had never negotiated their salary.
The reasons women gave for not negotiating varied between the two universities. Fear was the leading barrier at Drury University, while “I don’t know” was the most common response at Cox College.
Participants also differed in what they believed would help them negotiate. Drury participants most frequently identified overcoming nervousness and fear, while Cox participants most frequently identified gaining field experience.
Among the women who had negotiated, 78.9% reported receiving what they asked for.
Taken together, the findings suggest an opportunity for further research into a part of salary negotiation that can easily be overlooked: what happens before a woman ever makes the ask.
For some women, the challenge may be fear. For others, it may be limited experience, uncertainty about how to begin, or never having seriously considered negotiation in the first place.
Understanding those barriers is an important step toward developing salary negotiation education that does more than tell women to negotiate.
It can help prepare them to actually have the conversation.