Introduction
The Shriver Report- A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink is a report on women’s wages and job opportunities. The report goes into detail about income inequality, which refers to the unequal earnings, specifically in this report, the unequal earnings of men and women. Although, the report does discuss the progress women have made in closing the wage job, entering the workforce and holding positions in male dominated fields, the gap still exists. Overall, this causes many women; especially women of color to live near the poverty line. The report also offers suggestions on how to close the wealth gap (Boushey, Gordon, & Ross, 2014).
Living on the Brink
Living on the brink refers to women living right above the national poverty line. This also can be viewed as people in the working
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Reasons for why more women of color live in poverty are they have a larger pay gap, their spouses of color earn less than white men, and they are more likely to be single mothers. Even though, statistically there are more white single mothers, women of color are more disproportionately represented to be single mothers. As single mothers they have to support their family with their earnings, which is typically low. Women of color are usually paid 64 and 55 cents for every dollar earned by white men (Boushey, Gordon, & Ross, 2014).
Income Inequality and Men
Men faced similar challenges as women in employment rates and income. Before the Great Recession the employment rate of men fell 9.1 percent. Also, there was a division between men because of income inequality. Only men at high paying positions saw an income growth, and men at the bottom 80 percent saw their income fall. Overall, men and women lacked the opportunity for economic mobility, which is moving into another income class, such as low-income to the middle class (Boushey, Gordon, & Ross, 2014).
Author’s
Despite the manifestation of Rosie the Riveter propaganda and the continuous push to recruit women, they still were not granted equal pay for their services. This was true in the 1940’s and it’s still a relevant issue today. Then, it was rare for women to earn even slightly more than fifty cents to every man’s dollar. Now, the average woman earns anywhere from sixty to eighty percent of a man’s salary for the exact same job. Ranges vary depending on the specific career field. However, women of minorities remain stuck in injustice systematic trends. The pay rate for a female minority is still approximately fifty percent.
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.”
The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women continue to earn less than men. Countless arguments have promoted that wage inequality has changed and that everyone finally receives an equal amount of pay. “For women of color, the gap is largest of all: In 2006, black and Hispanic women earned 86 and 87 cents on the white man’s dollar, respectively,” (Mcswane 2). If a woman is lucky enough she will get an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. But it is challenging for a woman of a minority background to achieve this. Not only are women paid less because of their sex, but also because of their race. There seems to be a mentality that because someone is a woman and a minority that they cannot do the same job as men or that women do not have the same education as the men, so employers do not have to pay them the same. “When the numbers are broken down by district, they 're pretty hard to ignore. Women in Texas are being utterly screwed financially, according to the data compiled by AAWU, with women earning anywhere from 66 percent of what men do in some districts, to the top end of things, which is about 89 percent,” (Leicht 4). The proof cannot be ignored. It i...
The wage gap is a major issue that is constantly brought up in the work place. Numerous people use the term “wage gap” to state how gender can affect somebody 's income. There has always been an understanding that men typically made more money than women. For a long time, women were not allowed to work; therefore men were in charge of “bringing home the bacon”. However, times have changed and there are various situations where a household is centered off a women’s’ income. Females can become single mothers who have a responsibility to care for a child(s). Responsibilities can include monthly payments of water and electric bills and even weekly payments towards groceries. Women have to acquire enough money so that they are able
Additionally, we believed men deserved to have higher power by getting more money than women. After some research, we think it’s not fair that women make less than men who have the same education and the same job. In the long run, it can make it hard for women to support their families. We found out that the gender pay gap is a “complex issue with many causes”, which are often inter-related. It seems that the direct cause of this issue is discrimination. We also found out that inequality starts early; just one year out of college, college-educated women working full-time earned $32,000 compared to $42,000 for college-educated men working
The average women will lose $523,000 in her lifetime due to unequal pay due to gender discrimination. Although women are more likely to have college degrees, women still receive only seventy-six percent of men’s pay. Among African American men and women, earning college degrees is the widest among all other races due to institutionalized racism and the drive to keep black men out of college. Another key point addressed in the book is when women choose to have children they lose income, jobs, experience, and retirement
Women have consistently received less pay than their male coworkers for the same work. the statistics released by the International Labor Organization reveal the obviously lower pay wages women receive. On average, a single women household earns around $27,000 with forty-three percent of that income coming from the government’s aid. In 2009 women made up only twenty-four percent of CEOs in the United States. Single mothers simply do not make enough money to provide a good life for their family, while living well within the poverty standard. ILO also released the world average difference in pay gap from women to men is seventeen percent. This is why Third Wave feminism can be labeled as radical in their fight for equality. To challenge todays social norms and challenge such a big gap, many would scoff. Cynthia, an active feminist in the work place, reports that “following the significant progress toward closing the gender wage gap during the 1980s and 1990s, the last decade has seen no further improvement.” No progress is being made and single working mothers are being paid less then men for the same work. Despite this injustice, progress is being made, Cynthia explains that the “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009” allows workers to legally discuss work wages and allow women to report unfair or unequal wages (7). This is a step to gender equality and a creating a hopeful future for women. Despite
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). The gender wage gap not only harms a woman’s ability to provide for herself, it also harms many children and families. Women are now the primary caregivers
There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a quarter of all national businesses and earn more than one point two trillion dollars (“Assessing the Past, Taking Stock of the Future” 6). Since many women are now becoming are the primary sources of income in the household, making less that a man does not only negatively affect families, but also the overall economy suffers as well. These women, among many others, are the ones who end up purchasing the supplies that go toward improving communities and stimulating the economy. There is no reason that the general public should stand for this. Women should be treated equally to men in today’s American society based on their biological compositions, psychological profiles and contributions to history.
With a record 64 million women in the workforce, pay discrimination hurts the majority of American families. Families lose $200 billion in income annually to the wage gap—an average loss of more than $4,000 for each working family. In addition, wage discrimination lowers total lifetime earnings, thereby reducing women’s benefits from Social Security and pension plans.
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.
The division of labour and education along gender lines, racial inequalities and discrimination, and unpaid domestic labour all contribute to the growing feminization of poverty. Feminists are working to decrease the income gap, to benefit the overall health of women and the population at large. The term feminization of poverty describes the disproportionate amount of women who are poor, and its link to the division of labour along gender lines (Calixte, Johnson, & Motapanyane, 2010). The Canadian Labour Congress reported that in 2005, women working full time earned 70.5 cents to the dollar that every male in a comparable job earned ( as cited in Calixte, et al., 2010, p. 17) Across the board, women are more likely to suffer from poverty than men are (Harnan, 2006). Feminists are constantly trying to decrease the wage gap with activism.
Are you aware that in 2015, women who were working full time in the United States were only paid 80 percent of what men were paid, at a 20 percent gap? This number is only up a measly one percentage from 2014, and the change isn’t of any major significance. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the earnings ratio hasn’t had significant annual change since 2007. This gender wage gap has only narrowed since the 1970s and due largely to women’s progress in education and workforce participation and to men’s wages rising at a slower rate. Still, the pay gap does not appear likely to go away on its own. At the rate of change between 1960 and 2015, women are expected to reach pay equity with men in 2059. But even that slow progress has stalled in recent years. These
Many people do not realize how important the salary of a woman is, or how much one family may depend on it. Many may think that all men are head of all households. However that is not always the case. More than fifteen point one million family households are headed by women. Of these households, thirty-two percent or 4,826,159 families have an income that falls below the federal poverty line. That’s almost five million homes and families who are considered poor all because of the unfair gender pay gap we have today (National Partnerships).
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).