High-profile technology companies have made progress in shrinking the pay disparity between their male and female employees, but amid rising discontent about diversity and equity programs flowing from Silicon Valley, some founders say the forced transparency exercise is flawed.

As American tech giants turn their backs on progressive workplace policies, the second year of data published by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency showed companies including Culture Amp, Airwallex, Atlassian, Go1, Employment Hero, WiseTech, Octopus Deploy and Rokt reduced the size of their median gender pay gaps compared with last year.