What nobody’s saying out loud about frum businesses

The frum business world isn’t just a mini version of corporate America with yarmulkes and sheitels. It has its own culture, its own norms, and yes, its own pay structures. For frum women in particular, there are a few factors that contribute to the pay disparity:

• Flexibility comes at a cost – Many frum workplaces offer shorter hours and work-life balance for women, but that often means lower pay.
• Frum women don’t negotiate as hard as men – Whether it’s because they don’t know they should, or they don’t want to be seen as “pushy,” they tend to accept whatever number is offered.
• Ignorance of salary norms – Knowledge gives you negotiating power, but in our world, salaries aren’t posted on Glassdoor, nobody talks numbers openly, and asking about wage rates can feel as socially inappropriate as asking a shidduch reference about weight.
• Employers are playing the capitalist game – If they can get away with paying less, they will. This isn’t personal — it’s business.
• The “secondary earner” stigma – There’s a double whammy here. When employers view a female employee as a secondary earner (even if that’s not true in her household), they pay less. When women view themselves as secondary earners, they don’t fight as hard for promotions. According to a Pew Research study, married men feel significantly more pressure to support their families than married women — 60 percent versus 40 percent. This pressure translates into job decisions, career ambition, and salary expectations.
• Frum culture influences career choices – A study published in Psychological Science (Stoet and Geary, 2018) suggests that in more gender-equal societies, women feel less pressure to enter high-paying, male-dominated fields and instead choose careers that align with personal preferences, which tend to be people-oriented. This could explain why frum women, raised in a culture that values family and communal roles, often enter lower-paying fields like chinuch, therapies, and nonprofit work rather than finance or tech.
• Frum companies are typically smaller businesses – Even if a woman works in finance or tech in the frum business sector, she might still be left short-handed. Research from Harvard Business Review found that when salary decisions are left open-ended — without clear pay bands — bias, whether conscious or not, can creep in. When pay is standardized, gaps tend to shrink. In many frum businesses, which tend to be smaller and less formal, salary bands are often murky at best, which can contribute to disparities.

Men ask for the moon — women ask for what’s fair. Guess who wins?

The most touted piece of advice is also the most infuriating because it seems to blame women for their circumstances: You just gotta negotiate harder. But the fact is, men assertively push for better pay while women generally accept what they’re offered.

Tech recruiter Dina Ben Gershon sees this all the time. In corporate companies, HR has salary ranges for all positions based on official industry reports. By the time an interviewee reaches the salary discussion, all things have been considered, and the determining factor of what that person makes is what they ask for.

If they ask for the high end of the range, they’ll get it. Low range, they’ll get that, too. If someone asks for a salary under the range, the employer might possibly bump the requested pay to the low end, because they want their salaries to be fair. The onus is on the potential employee.

Ahuva,* who works in the finance department of a nonprofit, has seen these dynamics often. “Men ask for the moon, whether they’re qualified or not. Women, on the other hand, weigh the social dynamics — wondering if the HR rep’s sister-in-law goes to the same shul as their mother and how that might affect perceptions.”

Research by Reig-Aleixandre, García-Ramos, and De la Calle-Maldonado supports this pattern. Women tend to have a stronger sense of professional social responsibility, considering the long-term relational and ethical impacts of their decisions more than men do. Meanwhile, men are often more direct in asking for raises or promotions, focusing on career outcomes over social consequences.

So are women penalized for being considerate and socially aware? It seems so. Is it worth being perceived as “normal” and “nice” over a bigger paycheck? For some women, the answer is yes.

Faige Herman, the founder and CEO of PROject Careers, has coached hundreds of women worldwide. She points out another difference between men and women — men don’t take things personally; women do. When turned down for a raise, women sulk, but men just ask again a little later. The men understand that it’s not personal — it’s just business.

What’s compelling is that even when women do negotiate well, there’s a social cost, according to research by Harvard Business Review. People don’t want to work with women after seeing them negotiate. This social cost, however, doesn’t seem to affect men. Research further reveals that while there’s a stigma associated with hard-driving women, people respect women who negotiate and advocate for other people. So maybe make a deal with your BFF to negotiate each other’s raises, or advocate for collective raises.

Expectant women are especially reluctant to request higher pay, feeling they’re already asking for “so much” by needing maternity leave. But as Dina Ben Gershon points out, “If your employer hired you as a woman, he knew children were a possibility and took that risk. You’re not asking for anything outlandish.”

Peshy*, who works in the finance sector, was once shown an invoice for a coworker’s wife’s hospital bill after his wife gave birth. The invoice was paid by the employer. “A woman would never have the chutzpah to submit such an invoice, no matter what kind of performer they are,” she said. Timid or “normal” employees don’t get reimbursed, or significant raises.

Faigy Ort, a recruiter for PCS in Lakewood, once met with a prospective job seeker who had a lot of experience. “When she told me she was making 28 dollars an hour, I was crying for her. She was so unaware, and because she didn’t know, she simply never asked for more.”

Why men get raises and women get “flexibility.”

Men and women approach career growth differently. Eli Garfinkel, president of PlaceMint Agency, puts it bluntly: “A qualified woman will take a mid-level accounting job and stay there for years. A man will typically take that same job, stay for two years, and move on to something bigger.” Women prioritize stability, camaraderie, and work-life balance. Men prioritize growth, salary bumps, and moving up the ladder.

Dina Ben Gershon shared the story of Sarah, a senior manager at a large global firm. Working under her was a man we’ll call Dovid, who soon left for bigger opportunities. A few years later, Dovid was now in the C-suite, and Sarah still a manager. Dovid approached Sarah to offer her a job. It was a great opportunity: excellent pay, good work environment and schedule. It seemed like a win-win, but Sarah declined. Her current setup was working well for her and her family, she enjoyed her job and didn’t want to shake anything up.

The perfect illustration of the different way men and women approach opportunity, advancement, and ambition.

Workplace sociologist Catherine Hakim’s coined the term “preference theory” after discovering that (contrary to popular opinion), it’s not that women don’t have sufficient opportunity for career advancement, it’s that they consciously choose to prioritize stability, flexibility, and work-life balance.

If you think you’d never choose stability over a bigger paycheck, well, according to Eli Garfinkel, two years is already considered significant experience in a job/industry. Would you be willing to switch jobs every two years for advancement?

What’s maddening is that this tendency for men to leave after two years helps them even more: Faige Herman explains that men will often get the raise they ask for because their boss knows they’ll bounce if they don’t get it, while women will stay either way.

Leadership roles usually come with higher wages, but even here, women are at a disadvantage. When Pew researchers asked female interviewees if they would want to be a boss in the future, 42 percent said no.

This again speaks to the reluctance of some women to advance their careers if it will impinge on their lifestyle, Faigy Ort has observed that women with busy home lives are often happy to take on “dumb” work that they don’t have to think about or take home with them. At that stage of life, they typically put flexibility above satisfaction, creativity, or advancement.

A mother? You’re hired! But only if your kids promise to never need you.

Women have a reputation for being great employees. Business owners love them because they get the job done, with all its  details, to satisfaction and they bring a strong sense of work ethic to the table. Because women tend to value stability over ambition and growth, they’ll stay in jobs and positions longer than men, which leads to less turnover and a more stable work environment.

Business owners also love women for less admirable reasons. First, as we’ve mentioned, they’re less assertive in negotiations. Second, because women are often less ambitious, business owners generally don’t worry about female employees going out on their own and becoming competition (which is a common occurrence and fear with male employees).

Women sound like a dream to employers, so why not just hire them exclusively? In a word — kids. “All mothers are the CEOs of one business [their homes and families] and then they may have another job,” says Shloime Glicksman of Pro Talent Solutions. Children’s schedules, and maternity leave, in particular, can wreak havoc on a business.

Things can get dysfunctional when there’s a tight deadline and one employee is stuck at urgent care with a  sick kid, another is at a Chumash play, and one left for maternity leave two weeks early. “My workplace attendance has never been higher than eighty to ninety percent between maternity leave, sick kids, and the like,” shared a Lakewood business owner who employs around 60 women.

Women often feel like they need to choose between their job, bringing in money for their family, and their family itself. Employers often need to make similar decisions: They can be as accommodating as they can be, but if the work isn’t done, or customers aren’t serviced, there won’t be a business to be benevolent about.

While most women in the United States take six weeks off after birth, the Family Leave Act allows women to take off up to 12 weeks (unpaid) while still guaranteeing their job. In Israel women have 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, and in the UK, women have nine months maternity leave.

“Smaller companies face greater challenges with maternity as there are fewer opportunities to back fill roles with other members of staff,” says Shalom Benaim, who owns a UK-based finance business. It’s not about the money, the government is paying, but again, the work itself needs to get done, and if there’s a constant gap because of maternity leave, and short-term replacements are hard to find, there’s little incentive for business owners to hire women in their childbearing years. While this may seem offensive to women, from a business owner’s perspective, it’s simply good business sense.

The Lakewood business community adapted to this challenge by shifting the definition of full-time. Once women become mothers, their hours generally shift from 9-5 to 9-3. If there’s a pay cut, it’s never proportionate to the hours cut. Often it ends up being in lieu of a raise.

This schedule is not offered to single women or women who don’t yet have children. When prospective single employees request 9-3 hours, it’s considered a red flag by recruiters and companies; the impression being that this candidate is not committed. Is this discrimination against single women and ones without children? Technically yes, but it’s framed as a benefit to mothers.

Hours and job responsibilities are usually women’s first concerns when approaching a new job. Aviva Barrish, a recruiter for PCS, shared that when she posted a job looking for a controller, she quickly she received a message from one woman and one man. The woman’s question was: “What are the hours?” The man wanted to know more about the role.

The upside to all this is that businesses love older women as employees. Or simply women with less on their plate, whether they’re single or their youngest child comes home later. “A forty-year-old woman is a business owner’s dream candidate,” said one recruiter.

What to do about it? If you’re willing to put in the hours and effort that is standard of men, let prospective employers know that you can stay late, take on responsibility and the like. If you want the grace that comes with being a working mother, let your employer know your boundaries, but expect them to treat you in kind.

Chinuch Pay Gap

Rebbeim get paid more than teachers. That’s a fact of life, at face value, at least. Because when you crunch the numbers and hear the justifications, an interesting story reveals itself.

Morahs work approximately 3.5 hours per day, 5 days a week, totaling ~700 hours per year.

Rebbeim work 4 – 4.5 hours per day, 6 days a week, including Sundays and extra summer weeks in some locations:

Standard Rebbeim: ~825 hours per year

Lakewood Rebbeim: ~1,160 hours per year (due to longer daily hours and July school sessions)

Now let’s compare salaries:

Lakewood:

New Rebbeim: $42K → $36/hour

New Morahs: $22K → $31/hour

Larger Tri-State Area:

Experienced Rebbeim: $55K → $51/hour

Experienced Morahs: $32K → $45/hour

Obviously, there are outliers with morahs making more, or less, same with rebbeim. Yet when looking at the average, it seems the pay gap increases. Is it huge? No. But that’s not the end of the story.

Why the Gap Widens

In a word: Perks. Here are six fringe benefits that are only available to rebbeim.

Parsonage reduces taxable income, so taxes are lower.

Chasdei Lev Distributions. (Not all yeshivos participate, but more do than don’t, and those that don’t often have their own program.) There are distributions twice a year — food is available at wholesale prices on Succos, and is highly subsidized on Pesach, with payment capped at a few hundred dollars. This saves rebbeim thousands of dollars a year.

Monetary Gifts at Chanukah and Purim: The average is $50-$100, but there are generous and grateful parents who may give $300, or even $1,000 to a rebbi. Even at the low end, $50 multiplied by 25 kids twice a year is an additional $2,500.

Simchah Funds: They’re formulated differently in every yeshivah, some are formal, others are need-based, and the amounts differ vastly, but on the low end, 5K for a bar mitzvah, 10K for a wedding. Have you heard of a morah receiving a cash gift on the birth of a child? I haven’t.

Tutoring Bump: Rebbeim can command tutoring rates of $125 an hour. A regular yungerman can get around $85.

Tuition Credits: Some schools have them, others don’t. Some school systems have them only for rebbeim, and not for morahs. Some schools have dedicated balabatim who take care of the rebbeim as the need arises — basically, every yeshivah runs its perks differently, but the perks exist.

The Justifications

One school administrator (who oversees both a boys and girls division) made the argument that when a man becomes a rebbi, he’s been learning in kollel for a long time and has earned the equivalent of a PhD in his subject matter, versus a morah who, even with a degree, doesn’t have that. But is that argument valid?

You don’t need a PhD in most subject matters to teach elementary school.

Another argument: It’s harder to prepare a class of Gemara than a Chumash class, so rebbeim should be paid more. This may be true, but it’s not all day, and it’s not all rebbeim. Gemara learning only starts in fourth or fifth grade.

There’s also the generalization that a rebbi is the breadwinner of the home and should be compensated as such. Yes, morahs are, too, but it’s less common.

This also raises the question of need-based income. Should people be paid more because they have more children? What about the rebbi who is dealing with secondary infertility — does that not cost money? What about the single morah who lives on her own and helps her family… does she not have legitimate needs? You can’t ever really know someone’s needs. And this mindset easily gets ridiculous: Should whoever is the biggest nebach get the most? Is that the incentive system a school wants to build their salaries around — the biggest kvetch?

Some administrators blame the disparity on historical precedence. They acknowledge the discrepancy, but it’s so baked in the system that changing it is nearly impossible.

Teaching Outliers — Male English Teachers

Male English teachers in Lakewood yeshivos can make a pretty penny compared to morahs and rebbeim. There are many more positions open than there are teachers and when you have a market like that, the yeshivos are forced to pay up. Teaching general studies in yeshivos is a thankless job, and the boys tend to be challenging. But the hours are short, usually around two hours a day, four days a week. The salaries are around 35 to 40K. When you do the math on that, teachers make over $100 an hour.

Money talks… but women don’t.

O

ne of the biggest obstacles to pay equity in the frum world isn’t just the gap itself — it’s that nobody knows how big the gap even is. Salaries in the corporate world might be listed on Glassdoor, but in the frum business ecosystem? It’s radio silence. People will share their Bubby’s secret kokosh cake recipe before they’ll tell you how much they make.

This secrecy makes it nearly impossible for women to know what they should be earning. Job seekers don’t have a benchmark, employees don’t know if they’re underpaid, and employers take full advantage of this silence. As Dina Ben Gershon puts it, “Friends need to help friends and share numbers.” Otherwise, businesses will keep paying the least they can get away with.

Why the secrecy? A few reasons. First, money talk is uncomfortable. In frum female culture, openly discussing salaries can feel like flaunting wealth or, worse, inviting ayin hara. Second, people are scared — scared their employer will find out they shared their pay, scared of realizing they’ve been underpaid for years, scared of the social fallout if word gets around.

Faige Herman has a more generous theory: Since money is not a woman’s focus, they don’t naturally talk about it. Whenever they do bring it up, it feels uncomfortable, so they avoid it. But there’s no reason to be shy, says Faige. The men aren’t — they talk money all the time. Her suggestion: Get comfortable.

Because ultimately, this silence benefits only one party: the employer. When people don’t share numbers, companies control the narrative. Employees stay grateful for “nice” salaries when, in reality, they’re making significantly less than they could elsewhere. This problem isn’t as acute for men, as they’re not as shy about talking salary as women are.

Job seekers and even employers can ask recruiters for salary benchmarks for different roles, but the answers tend to be vague because frum businesses operate so independently. Faigy Ort explains that while billing managers have fairly standard pay across the board, most other salaries vary widely. “Starting salaries for entry-level positions in Lakewood average around 26 dollars an hour,” she says. “But beyond that, it’s entirely company dependent.” She agrees that people sharing salary information would be a huge help, but she also understands the hesitations.

The fix? Talk. Compare notes. Create anonymous frum salary surveys and spreadsheets. Share salary ranges, even if it’s in whispers. The more people know, the less they’ll settle for crumbs.

If you’re willing to work for less, guess what? You will.

Some people have the mistaken idea that their frum boss is doing them a toivah by employing them and should treat the relationship with the benevolence you’d expect from someone doing chesed. Business owners, however, are in it to make money, not run a tzedakah fund. At the end of the day, this isn’t about whether employers are “nice” or “fair.” It’s about business.

Yossi*, a small business owner in the Five Towns, said it straight: “It’s capitalism. If you’re willing to work for less, why would I offer you more?” Faige Herman underscores this, “You can’t be angry at the employer for getting a good deal.”

Past salaries also play a role. In the UK, employers have access to new hires’ tax documents, which list their previous salary. If someone was making $50K at their last job, they’re not getting offered $90K at their next. Twenty-two states in the United States, including New York and New Jersey, deemed it illegal for employers to ask about prospective employees past salaries, but there is some leeway, and interviewers are skilled at extracting this information.

In this scenario, men have the upper hand again. Since they often negotiate a higher starting salary, push for promotions, and switch jobs more often, the pay disparity just gets fatter.

Research can explain so much away, but most people are left with a visceral response: “It’s not fair!”

When people find out that two employees with the same education and experience have different salaries, they quickly jump to discrimination. But there’s often a lot more at play. As Shalom Benaim says, “Bottom line, there are no two cases the same. No one size fits all.” There are intangibles that are impossible to measure. Different industries value different things: personality, overtime, graduates of particular programs, and the like.

Employees are not privy to this information and while it may be uncomfortable to acknowledge that someone may have something “over” you, going back to the capitalist mindset, this is something employers are willing to pay more for.

Personal story time: I taught high school English for over a dozen years. After three years in highly academic schools, I applied to one closer to home. In salary negotiations, I pushed for a certain rate per period (don’t ask, it’s too embarrassing). The administrator resisted, but I stood my ground and got it — on condition that I wouldn’t ask for a raise for three years. I thought I’d won.

A decade later, long after I left that school, I caught up with an old colleague. She reminisced about her hiring process — how she’d never taught before, yet the administrator apologetically offered her the rate he had refused me and quickly bumped it in the following years. I was furious. Back when I worked there, my husband was in kollel. We were happily broke, and every penny mattered. My colleague, at a different stage of life, had a beautiful home and seemed to be working for fulfillment. How could the administrator do that to me? I spent years convinced he negotiated in bad faith.

I ran the story by Eli Garfinkel, who kindly pointed out that I didn’t understand what the school valued. They likely wanted older teachers with impressive last names. I don’t know about the last names, but the first part was true. They hadn’t wanted to hire me at first — I was too young — but there were no better candidates.

What felt like blatant discrimination was more nuanced in hindsight. Am I totally over my pay trauma? Probably not. But I do have a broader perspective.

Bottom line: Are women paid less? Generally, yes. But for the women who do display ambition, are willing to swallow the time greediness that some industries and jobs have, and will push hard for higher wages, the answer is: perhaps not. All the recruiters and business owners that I interviewed shared that these women are paid at the same scale.

This might be a discouraging read, particularly if all the assumptions the world has about women and employment don’t apply to you. Working against the stereotype is challenging. And even if you fit every descriptor — a mother working part-time as a speech therapist — it can be frustrating because you’re talented, bring a lot to the table, and have bills to pay, too.

There is comfort to be found in the Chovos Halevavos. If you do your appropriate hishtadlus (which means doing what people would consider to be normal, nothing crazy), you will get exactly what you’re meant to get. No one can take away a penny that was destined for you. No, this message doesn’t pay tuition or camp, or Yom Tov, but it does take away the sting and the wistfulness.

The frum business world isn’t immune to pay disparity, but the reasons behind it are more complex than simple discrimination. Yes, bias exists. Yes, the system favors men in certain ways. But a lot of the gap comes from entrenched behaviors, negotiation patterns, and differing career priorities. Women who want to close that gap need to advocate for themselves, rethink their approach to career growth, and — most importantly —start talking numbers.

Because if we don’t look out for each other, who will?

By the Numbers 

Does gender discrimination exist? It’s a juicy topic, but hard data is hard to come by. Many interviewees shared experiences where they thought there may be pay disparity and discrimination but had no hard evidence to prove it. It was all “vibes” from seeing coworkers’ reactions to bonuses, to questions about marital status in the interview stage.

While there’s nothing in the frum world to match Pew’s research on the gender pay gap, there was a recent study conducted by Mispar in 2024, which collected data from 3,424 Orthodox Jewish employees in the Tristate area. Employees self-selected into one of 27 different industries including advertising & marketing, construction, e-commerce, education, pharmaceuticals, and real estate.

When examining the data overall, it was found that men earned $46,128 more per year than women across all industries. The industry with the highest earning differential was the fashion industry, where men reported earning $107,521 more per year than women. The second-highest income differential was found in the insurance sector, where males outearned females by $106,732.

Of the 27 industries analyzed, women earned more than men in only two industries: distribution and pharmaceuticals. On average, women in the distribution industry earned $40,033 more than men, while women in the pharmaceuticals industry earned $25,346 more than their male counterparts.

The only way to know if gender discrimination is taking place is to ask direct questions to friends, coworkers, and bosses. But most people would rather kasher their kitchen for Pesach than do that.

True Fact

Of 27 industries analyzed, women made men in only two: distribution and pharmaceuticals.

True story

“For several years already, I had been managing a heimish company that pulled in millions. You know what my pay was? A whopping eighteen dollars an hour. My annual raise was a generous one dollar more per hour — no matter inflation, no matter my contributions. With the help of a career coach, I built the confidence to ask for a raise that reflected my accumulative experience and contributions to the company. He said no. So I left. And now? I have a new job with better pay.” –Shaindel

True Fact

I got a job offer at an Israeli tech company. The company had two offices — one mixed-gender, one women-only. My job offer was for the mixed office. So I asked if I could be placed in the women’s office for comfort. They said sure, but my salary would be cut in half. Because… it’s the women’s office. Make that make sense. I declined.” –Kayla

True Fact

“I am a therapist with twenty- plus years of experience. Sometimes I refer clients to a male therapist; he does the same for me. His rate? One hundred seventy-five dollars a session. Mine? One hundred ten. And yet, when people switch from him to me and ask my rate, they suddenly get all huffy: Why are you charging so much? This, from the same people who were happily forking over one hundred seventy-five just five minutes ago.” –Michal

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 939)