Spanning the Gender Gap When Negotiating

The World Economic Forum this week released its 2010 Global Gender Gap Report which points to enduring gaps in women's economic power worldwide.

While education and health have improved, they still lag behind their male counterparts in economic and political authority Ricardo Hausmann, an author of the report and the director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, told the Christian Science Monitor.

While France has faded to No. 46 in the ratings, the United States rose 12 spots to No. 19, marking its first appearance on the top 20 in the report's five-year history.

Over at TheLadders this week, we ran an excerpt from "A Woman's Guide to Successful Negotiating," a new book by Lee E. Miller and Jessica Miller that explains how women can help level the playing field for compensation.

"Women who successfully master the art of negotiating earn more money and are more successful in their careers," the authors write. "In fact, for some women who have learned to negotiate effectively these statistics have been completely reversed. According to the most recent available census data, single, childless women between ages 22 and 30, in major metropolitan areas, now earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts."

Two important points: Remember that negotiating isn't petty, and don't take the position for less than you want in hopes of proving yourself on the job. "When negotiating compensation, the only way to be certain that you get what you deserve is to know your worth in the marketplace, to understand how to negotiate compensation, to firmly and creatively negotiate a compensation package consistent with your market value and be willing to walk away if you do not get it," they write.