The other gender gap in business - what is the Equity gap?

All large UK firms are now fully aware of the gender pay gap - the percentage difference between average hourly earnings for men and women. Currently, the gender pay gap is around 9.8%, and many businesses are already finding ways to make it even smaller within their firm.

But researchers at Carta and investment collective #Angels have found another worrying gap between the genders in the US – the equity gap.

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The study explains that, in startups, wealth is created through equity ownership on the ‘cap table’. A capitalization table (or cap table) is a list of owners of a company. It includes percentages of ownership, equity dilution, and value of equity in each round of investment.

When startups do well, earnings from equity are massive, and can be significantly greater than employees’ salaries.