The Wage Gap: Are Women paid less than Men?
Since the Equal Pay Act of 1963, American women have been struggling with wages and equal pay for decades. Even today, women have not shown any true advancement in terms of pay and wages in comparison to men who make far greater pay and have greater salaries in general. Since the age of World War 2, women began to obtain jobs in the absence of men who were at war. In 1942, it was asked of employers to make “adjustments which equalize wage or salary rates […] paid to males for comparable quality and quantity of work on the same or similar operations" (Brunner). This was a request for female workers to receive a salary that was equal to males. Not only did employers ignore the entreaty but by the end of World War 2, most women were kicked out of their jobs for the returning male veterans. In 1963, the Equal Pay Act came into fruition and for the first time in history, it became illegal to pay women based on sex in comparison to men. Although the wage gap has improved throughout the years, in general, there has been little improvement in terms of pay for women. In 1963, women used to earn around 59% of wages to men and as of 2012, women of today now earn 80.9% to men’s wages (Brunner). Some individuals would argue that women do not assert themselves in the workplace and that the wage gap between men and women is entirely nonsensical. However, several studies have shown that even though women have made progress throughout the workforce in the four decades from the Equal Pay Act of ’63, there is still an inequality for women in comparison to men.
There are jobs where women are paid more than men but often these jobs are considered traditionally feminine. For example, in terms of secretarial d...
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When President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963 into law, he hoped that it would allow working women to finally earn the same amount of money as men; however, more than half a century later, men continue to out earn women in almost every field of work (Lipman para. 4). Male dominated fields tend to pay more than female dominated fields at similar skill levels. In 2012, women earned an average of $691 per week while men earned an average of $854 per week. Furthermore, the majority of women remain unaware that they are earning less than their male colleagues (Hegewisch para. 1).
For several decades, most American women occupied a supportive, home oriented role within society, outside of the workplace. However, as the mid-twentieth century approached a gender role paradigm occurred. The sequence of the departure of men for war, the need to fill employment for a growing economy, a handful of critical legal cases, the Black Civil Rights movement seen and heard around the nation, all greatly influenced and demanded social change for human and women’s rights. This momentous period began a social movement known as feminism and introduced a coin phrase known in and outside of the workplace as the “wage-gap.”
Blau, F., & Kahn, L. (2007). The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone as far as they can. Academy of Management Perspectives , 21 (1), 7-23.
Women are more than half the work force and are graduating at higher rates then men and continue to earn considerably less then men. There are several contributing factors to the gender wage gap. Women experience gender discrimination in the work force even though it’s been illegal since the Equal Pay Act in 1963. One of the challenges for women is uncovering discrimination. There is a lack of transparency in earnings because employees are either contractually prohibited or it’s strongly discouraged from being discussed. Discrimination also occurs in the restricting of women’s access to jobs with the highest commission payments, or access to lucrative clients.
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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).
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Despite government regulations to promote equality within the workplace, women’s salaries continue to lag behind males in similar career with similar experiences. According to research performed by Blau & Kahn (2007) “women salaries averaged about 60% of men’s until the 1970s and rose to nearly 80% by the 1990s” (as cited in Bendick, Jr. & Nunes, 2012, p.244). Today, women on average earn approximately $.81 for every dollar that men earn in the United States (Guy and Fenley P.41 2014).