Hariri Institute Develops Multi-Party Computation Software to Support Boston Pay Equity Efforts

In 2013, Mayor Tom Menino launched a first of its kind initiative to close the gender wage gap in Boston. A central component of the initiative, dubbed 100% Talent, was a voluntary employer “Compact” wherein major Boston area employers would agree to take steps to support and promote women in the workplace. The Compact included a provision that signatories provide anonymized wage data to a neutral third party, to allow for more in depth analysis into the nature and scope of Boston’s wage gap and enable tracking toward goals. Mayor Martin Walsh, who took office in January 2014, has continued to support and lead the initiative, together with his Office of Women’s Advancement, the Boston Women’s Workforce Council headquartered at Simmons College, and the more than 60 local companies that have signed on.

A continued challenge for Boston had been the data provision, as the unprecedented nature of the Compact and its requirements meant there was no existing model for collecting, anonymizing and analyzing wage data from many independent entities. The Boston University Initiative on Cities, founded by Mayor Menino when he stepped down from office, engaged Hariri Institute Director Azer Bestavros who immediately agreed to take on the challenge. Working closely with the City and the Workforce Council, Professor Bestavros proposed the high-level protocol, and enlisted the talents of Research Fellow Andrei Lapets, and students Kyle Holzinger, and Eric Dunton to develop the software. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, Mayor Walsh recently highlighted the data gathering component as a priority for his Administration.

Pay equity initiatives continue to take hold nationwide, with the White House, the Massachusetts Governor’s office and the Treasurer’s office all convening multi-stakeholder coalitions to identify new ways to close the gender wage gap. Boston’s unique public/private structure coupled with a data reporting requirement is being closely watched by leaders nationwide.