In the first place, it is necessary to explain what wage discrimination against women is. In the widest sense of the term, wage discrimination is understood to be unequal pay for equal work or differentiation of wages on specific grounds which do not relate to the employee's performance. In the socio-economic theory age, education, and experience are considered to be the main sources of wage inequality. However, even if all of the above mentioned factors are eliminated, pay gap continues to exist due to discrimination on the grounds of gender identity. Such disparity in pay between men and women is the result of discriminatory behavior of employers who can pay women less than men, although they may have the same qualifications and job experience. …show more content…
On the other side, there are evident cases of discrimination against women during the course of their recruitment or dismissal, in matters of promotion, career development, and professional advancement. It also stands to mention that there is unequal allocation and unfair employment practices of male and female professionals by sectors and occupational groups with different levels of pay. What is even more interesting is the psychological aspects of wage discrimination. For historical reasons men were always considered to be daily breaders and only supporters of their families, while women were regarded as domestic goddesses whose responsibilities were limited to making the family's house a real home. Time passed by but the way of the world hasn't changed significantly. As a result, women are still being discriminated in the workplace, although present-day professional occupations for the most part do not require physical strength anymore. It should be noted that the pay gap between male and female professionals tends to change with age. Difference in earnings of a young girl and a young man or young male and female graduates is significantly less than that of men and women of middle …show more content…
Those measure included the adoption of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which was the first act on equal pay in the history of the country. The succeeding attack on discrimination again women came to the United States with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the purpose of prohibiting discrimination due to race and religious reasons, as well as differences in gender and nationality. Notwithstanding the adoption of any of these acts, wage discrimination against women in the US labor markets is still considered to be a common occurrence. For instance, the hourly wage of women in 1980's was on the average 30% lower than that of men. The reality is that at that time the disparity in pay between men and women was even greater than statistic data would demonstrate, as women used to work fewer hours per week than men. In 1984, women's wages accounted for only 65% of men's
Throughout the world, discrimination in all forms has continued to be a constant struggle; whether it’s racial, gender based, religion, beliefs, appearance or anything that makes one person different from another, it’s an everyday occurrence. A major place that discrimination is occurring at is in the workplace. One of the largest problems discrimination issues is believed to be gender. Women, who have the same amount of experience as men are not getting paid at the same rate as men, these women also are equally trained and educated. According to the article Gender Pay, it was discovered in 2007 that a woman makes 81 cents for every dollar a man earns.(“Gender Pay”) . This shouldn’t be happening in today’s society for the fact the society lived in today is suppose to be more accepting. Men are viewed as being more popular, valuable and having higher powers than women. The Reason Discrimination is involved in the equal pay equal work is because of the significance it has to how some businesses pay their employees.
Traditional gender roles in the United States and other societies have always been dictated as where the man goes and works for a salary as women stay at home to take of house related work. However, many changes in the traditional family has made gender roles go through significant changes. Many women have gone through college and have obtained college education degrees, which has allowed women to advance their careers. The break down of rigid gender roles and the increase in participation of women in the workplace have granted women more choices in life. The choices many women now have in there career fields has made some controversial views on the intelligence of women achieving the status of their male counterparts The first view obtained in the workplace is the ability to make a even paying field for both men and women. Many constituents have pledge to achieve equality for women through laws forbidding the use of any sexist policies that may constitute discrimination against sex. The second is weather working women have been allowed to working women have the same opportunities rewarded to them as men do. Many political action committees have help perpetuate feminist movements which intended to build equal opportunity workplaces for both men and women however, many questionable issues still arise at weather working conditions have become better for women.
Women have faced gender wage discrimination for decades. The gender pay gap is the difference between what a male and a female earns. It happens when a man and a woman standing next to each other doing the same job for the same number of hours get paid different salaries. On average, full-time working- women earn just “77 cents for every dollar a man earn.” When you compare a woman and a man doing the same job, “the pay gap narrows to 81 percent (81%)” (Rosin). Fifty-one years ago, in order to stop the gender gap discrimination, Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The act states that all women should receive “equal pay for equal work”. Unfortunately, even in 2014 the gender pay gap persists and even at the highest echelons of the corporate; therefore, the equal pay act is a failure.
Gender discrimination in the workplace is something that both men and women experience, women more than men. For instance, the current gender pat gap is 21 percent. This means that women are currently making 21 percent less than what their male counterparts are making. It has decreased over the years, but it is still a significant gap. In the workplace, women do not only experience discrimination in pay, but also in opportunities. An article states that, women are deemed less communal than men and that makes them less suited for certain careers (Miner, et. al, 2014). This thought alone puts women at a disadvantage when they are entering the labor force.
In 2015, female full-time workers earned eighty cents for every dollar earned by men. Gender wage inequality dates all the way back to World War II, when more and more women entered the labor force. “Everything You Need to Know about the Equal Pay Act” is an article discussing the history of gender wage discrimination in America during World War II. Social Justice: Opposing Viewpoints is a book that presents differing views from observers on issues of economic and social justice in the United States, focusing on the treatment of minorities and women. The stakeholders in the chapter I read called, Women Earn Less Than Men Due to Gender Discrimination, is Joel Wendland, a professor of liberal studies at Grand Valley State University.
A number of factors have contributed to the gap between men’s and women’s wages. These include: occupational segregation of women into low paying jobs; lower levels of unionization for women and attitudinal barriers that have kept women from achieving equality in the workplace and undervaluation for women’s work.
For many years in United States, equal salary pay for women has been a major issue that women have been fighting for decades. This began back in World War II, when the National Labor Board urged equalize the salary rates for women with the same rates that males were getting of the same professions. (Rowen) Although, traditionally most women do not work to provide for there family and there are not so many independent women during World War II. After World War II more women lost their jobs to veterans returning to the workforce. Women in the workforce after the war have been discriminated ever since. The idea of women as weak and cannot perform there jobs
In our society, women are faced with discrimination more than men. Compared to men, women face a lot inequalities in the work field. Men and women who hold the same position in a work field have differences in wage, this is known as the wage gap. Women are typically paid less than men despite the amount of work, effort, and skill level they have at their job. The wage gap between genders has been around since women entered the work force and still remains in existence to this day.
Due to various countries initiatives to shrink the wage inequality between men and women wages in the work force, the gap has narrowed, respectively, which may have helped form such opinion. However, stating that the gender pay gap does not exist in today’s society, anywhere, is completely unlikely. Seeing that the gap has loosened its grasp in the working world, in other countries, the gap between pay has widened or remained stagnant. One cannot help but wonder why the gap remains consistent, even with such substantial progress made in countries where the gap has decreased. Reasons as to why gender wage gap exist so heavily, slightly differs from country to country, but the overall effect from the wage disparity is wholly evident.
It is very important to be concerned about the issue because it is constantly increasing throughout the United States. It upsets me that women are paid less than men because women have the same ability and work ethic as men do, but they are looked at differently. According to AAUW, women make 77 percent of what men make. This rate hasn’t changed since 2002 (Hill, 2013). Statistics show that women will never make as much as men due to the thought of never being comparable to men (Williams, 2013).
For many decades, women have faced inequalities in the workforce. At one point, they were not allowed to work at all. Although women's rights have improved and are now able to work alongside men, they are still treated unfairly. According to the 2012 U.S. Census, women’s earnings were “76.5 percent of men’s” (1). In 2012, men, on average, earned $47,398 and women earned only $35,791. This is when comparing employees where both gender spend the same amount of time working. Not only do women encounter unfairness in work pay, they also face a “glass ceiling” on a promotional basis. This glass ceiling is a “promotion barrier that prevents woman’s upward ability” (2). For example, if a woman is able to enter a job traditionally for men, she will still not receive the same pay or experience the same increase in occupational ability. Gender typing plays a huge role in the workplace. It is the idea that women tend to hold jobs that are low paid with low status. Women are not highly considered in leadership positions because of social construction of gender. Society has given women the role of “caretakers” and sensitive individuals. Therefore, women are not depicted as authoritative figures, which is apparent with the absence of women in leadership roles in companies. Furthermore, sex segregation leads to occupations with either the emphasis of women in a certain job or men in a certain job. In 2009, occupations with the highest proportion of women included “secretary, child care worker, hair dresser, cashier, bookkeeper, etc.” (3). Male workers typically held job positions as construction workers, truck drivers, taxi drivers, etc. (3). Sex segregation represents inequality because the gender composition for these jobs depends on what ...
Some women would prefer to be barefoot and pregnant housewives that spend their days cooking and cleaning while their husband goes to work. However, other women embrace their right to pursue educational and occupational dreams. Unfortunately, because it has not been all that long ago that women were not considered to be qualified for a spot in most work places, they experience a lot of discrimination in the workplace. Because gender roles are almost deeply embedded in our society, women often do not get put up for the same job opportunities and promotions that their male equal might be subject
start to change in the 1980's as female earnings rose to 60.2 percent of men's.
It is, therefore, natural for most companies to think that women cannot be as capable as men in terms of assuming strenuous or challenging positions because women, by default, become less participatory and more vulnerable when they start to have family and children. Apparently, this situation has led to various gender discriminations in the labor market. In conclusion, although the roles of men and women have radically changed over the turn of the century, it is still inevitable to have various gender-related occupational differences because the social and biological roles of women and men do not really change. Society still perceives women as the home makers and men as the earners, and this perception alone defines the differing roles of men and women in the labor market.
One argument concludes that while there may be unequal pay in a said work place, the equal pay has nothing to do with gender. Kate O’Beirne, an author who addresses the feminist movement, says in her novel, “The claim that women face widespread wage discrimination is myth.” Instead, she argues that the idea is simply a tool used to boost the movement for feminists. She argues that since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, it is illegal for any businesses to not equally pay their women workers to their men workers if they are doing the same work. While this might be a valid point, it does not mean that businesses will not break the law to take the cheaper route. It was found in 2014 that women that were working full time were paid 79 percent of what men earned. The gender gap has progressed since the 1970s but has since slowed down. Progression does not mean resolution; the gap has not completely closed.