The Gender Pay Gap At Car Dealerships Is Way Worse Than The National Average

Image: Volkswagen

The average American household earned $74,580 in 2022 across all industries, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. The salary gap between women who work at car dealerships and men who work at franchised car dealerships is approximately one average American household, according to new survey data from Automotive News. Men in the industry earned an average of $218,700 in 2023, while women averaged $144,400 in the same period. For every dollar earned by a car dealership man, a car dealership woman made just 66 cents.

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The U.S. Department of Labor estimates that the average American woman makes 83 percent of what the average American man makes in a similar position, meaning women in car dealerships might be 17 percent worse off than women in other jobs.

Automotive News polled over 1,000 dealership employees, of which 85 percent were men and 13 percent were women. The survey showed that 82 percent of men polled were in manager/owner positions, while just 56 percent of women polled were in that category, despite women polling much higher in terms of education. Women polled were skewed much higher toward “administration” positions than men, as 34 percent of women worked admin jobs, while just four percent of men held the same jobs.

The world of car dealerships is truly the exemplary old boy’s club, rewarding long hours and grueling working conditions. Men are more likely to get the higher-paying bonus-dependent sales and business development jobs, reporting that 55 percent of their annual income was commission and bonus related, while just 30 percent of income came from the same sources for the women.

Perhaps the most telling statistic in the AN poll is found in the auto retail work sentiment segment. Just 6.3 percent of men in dealerships responded that the industry is “not welcoming to women” while 29 percent of women asked responded the same. And maybe a related statistic shows that 69 percent of men at dealerships said their job was “well-paying” and just 53 percent of women agreed. One minority woman with 25 years of industry experience reached by Automotive News was quoted as having said, “I have never been so disrespected and unappreciated in my life. I am mansplained to constantly by customers and coworkers.”

While this data is particularly disturbing, it’s an improvement over 2022, which saw men making 1.6 percent more on average, and women making 0.2 percent less. The American dealership network system is broken and awful.