If you believe women suffer systemic wage discrimination, read the new American Association of University Women (AAUW) study Graduating to a Pay Gap. Bypass the verbal sleights of hand and take a hard look at the numbers. Women are close to achieving the goal of equal pay for equal work. They may be there already.
How many times have you heard that, for the same work, women receive 77 cents for every dollar a man earns? This alleged unfairness is the basis for the annual Equal Pay Day observed each year about mid-April to symbolize how far into the current year women have to work to catch up with men 's earnings from the previous year. If the AAUW is right, Equal Pay Day will now have to be moved to early January.
The AAUW has now joined
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After controlling for several relevant factors (though some were left out, as we shall see), they found that the wage gap narrowed to only 6.6 cents. How much of that is attributable to discrimination? As AAUW spokesperson Lisa Maatz candidly said in an NPR interview, "We are still trying to figure that out."
One of the best studies on the wage gap was released in 2009 by the U.S. Department of Labor. It examined more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and concluded that the 23-cent wage gap "may be almost entirely the result of individual choices being made by both male and female workers." In the past, women 's groups have ignored or explained away such
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Women who major in sociology rather than economics, or who choose family-friendly jobs over those that pay better but offer less flexibility, may be compelled by cultural stereotypes. According to the National Organization for Women (NOW), powerful sexist stereotypes "steer" women and men "toward different education, training, and career paths" and family roles. But are American women really as much in thrall to stereotypes as their feminist protectors claim? Aren 't women capable of understanding their real preferences and making decisions for themselves? NOW needs to show, not dogmatically assert, that women 's choices are not free. And it needs to explain why, by contrast, the life choices it promotes are the authentic ones -- what women truly want, and what will make them happier and more
In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...
On the contrary, women still get paid less than men. According to CNN Money, “men still make more than women in most professions -- considerably more in some occupations than others, according to a new study by the job search site Glassdoor”. Although we like to comfort ourselves with the idea that we have gotten our rightfully earned rights, we had not been given bathroom breaks until 1998. Furthermore, employees are still afraid to have a voice in the workforce. Employers establish rules that let laborers know that they are inferior.
Nearly half of the labor force and breadwinners are women. More women are working in career fields and positions traditionally held by men. When women are not paid fairly, not only do they suffer, but so do their families. According to current research, “Despite passage of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which requires that men and women in the same work place be given equal pay for equal work, the "gender gap" in pay persists. Full-time women workers’ earnings are only about 77 percent of their male counterparts’ earnings. The pay gap is even greater for African-American and Latina women, with African-American women earning 64 cents and Latina women earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a Caucasian
...ncine D., and Lawrence M. Kahn. "The Gender Pay Gap: Have Women Gone as Far as
The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap. (n.d.). Retrieved November 13, 2017, from https://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-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...
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.”
The United States has one of the highest gender pay gaps among the developed countries. In the country, the gender pay gap is measured as the ratio of female to males yearly earning among workers in full-time, year round (FTYR) earnings. In 2009, female FTYR earned 77% (0.77) as much as the FTYR male workers (US Census Bureau, 2013). The history of Gender Gap earning reveals USA has made big strides towards reducing the gender pay gap from 1980. For instance, in 1980 the gender pay gap ratio was 0.62 while in 1990, the gap stood at 0.72. Further from 1990 to 2000, the gap reduced to 0.73 and then to 0.77 in 2009. Currently, the gender pay gap stands at 0.76 and continues to persist (US Census Bureau, 2013).
The American Association of University Women (AAUW) has long fought to end wage discrimination. Despite the Equal Pay Act and many improvements in women’s economic status over the past 40 years, wage discrimination still persists. AAUW continues to believe that pay equity—economic equity—is a simple matter of justice and strongly supports initiatives that seek to close the persistent and sizable wage gaps between men and women. The effects of pay inequity reach far. According to a 1999 study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the AFL-CIO, based on U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor statistics, women who work full time earn just 74 cents for every dollar men earn. That equals $148 less each week, or $7,696 a year. Women of color who work full time are paid even less, only 64 cents for every dollar men earn—$210 less per week and $11,440 less per year.
The Equal Pay Act (part of the Fair Labor Standards Act), forbids employers to compensate women differently for jobs that are “substantially equal”, that is, almost identical. Traditionally, women have worked in different occupations than men; these occupations tend to be substantially different, pay less and confer less authority.
From the beginning of history and to this day women still get paid less than the average man, but why? Whoever said that women are incapable of good work performance? Whoever said that women do not have the same responsibilities to maintain? What really makes a women’s work inferior to men? The answer is nothing. Today, women are depended on just as much as men, and are capable of performing at their level. However, a full-time working woman earns only seventy-seven cents for every dollar a man makes. These days women make up half the workplace in our society; they work just as hard and for the same reasons. Women deserve to be paid at an equal rate as men because they are relied on to uphold the same responsibilities and are just as qualified to perform at a man’s level.
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).
In the workplace, women do not receive the same benefits that men do. Some women do the same job, for the same amount of hours, and still do not receive the same pay for their work. Is there a specific reason behind this? No, it is just one of the many inequalities that goes on on the job. As pointed out in the essay by Susan Faludi, Blame it on Feminism, women earn less. The average women’s paycheck is twenty percent less than their male counterparts. Men with only high school education’s make more than some women who have graduated college. Most women are still working the traditional “female” jobs: secretaries, teachers, and nurses for example. Construction work, engineering, and doctor’s, are considered “out of our reach” and men’s jobs. Women are very capable of doing these jobs, but most times when applying for a “man’s job” are not taken seriously. American women are more likely not to receive health insurance and twice as likely not to draw pension then American men. They face the biggest gender-biased pay gap in the world.
Women’s right to equal pay or gender pay gap has been a subject of discussion over the years in the united states, women perform similar jobs to men, but are paid