Historically Marginalized Wage Equity (OI2362)

This metric is intended to capture the disparity—if any—between employees from groups historically marginalized on the basis of race and/or ethnicity compared to other employees who are not from groups historically marginalized on the basis of race and/or ethnicity. If the average wages paid to both groups on average were the same, the ratio would be 1. Organizations should use Target Stakeholder Demographic (PD5752) to disaggregate these groups.

This ratio can be calculated based on salaried employees with fixed wages or on employees with variable salaries (such as hourly, daily, weekly, other specified time cycle, or other specified parameter).

Organizations should footnote the specific position used in calculating this ratio, including whether the position is a managerial or non-managerial role. Organizations reporting this metric for multiple positions are encouraged to report these various data points for historically marginalized wage equity and to specify the position to which each data point corresponds.

While this metric helps organizations begin to understand historically marginalized wage equity in their operations, organizations are cautioned that other factors may affect the data collected. For example, the average wages reported for this metric may only be meaningful if multiple individuals both within and without groups historically marginalized on the basis of race and/or ethnicity have similar positions within the organization. Employee education, experience, and tenure at the organization, among other factors, may also influence wage disparities.

This metric is multidimensional with regard to the five dimensions of impact. In some contexts, this metric can serve as an indicator of whether the outcome being sought by an investor or organization is occurring (the WHAT dimension of impact). This metric may also help describe the HOW MUCH Scale dimension, which helps estimate the number of the targeted stakeholders experiencing the outcome. For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact (https://iris.thegiin.org/document/iris-and-the-five-dimensions/). No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. The selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.