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Pay gap between genders essay
Women's role in today's society
Gender wage gap and inequality
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For traditional gender role, women are viewed as primarily wives and mothers who have underpinned the welfare state (Browne, 2006). Nowadays, Women have higher levels of education, therefore the inequality should decline and the society seems to have a symmetrical equality in the division of work between men and women. However, the inequality still exists and the gender wage gap remains unchanged in some places such as Canada (Oakley, 2002). In 2012, the gender pay difference for both full-time and part-time employees based on median hourly earnings decreased to 19.7% while it was 20.2% in 2011. This was a narrowing of around 8% while it was 27.5% in 1997 (ONS, 2013). The women’s employment inequalities base on the pay, part-time work, horizontal and vertical segregation. This essay is going to talk about and analyse the existing inequalities for female employees by stating different theories and giving examples and statistics from different aspects.
The functionalist Parson argued that the ‘expressive’ role of childcare suits women naturally (Haralambos, 2004). The majority of women are working part-time, in order to interrupt for childrearing (Browne, 2006). Some economists supported the human capital theory; and claimed that the lack of commitment for women is the main reason of the drawbacks that they suffer in the labour market (Haralambos, 2004). Since women have less incentive to take lengthy training programmes; therefore they have less value to employers compared to those highly-trained male. The lack of training, experience and qualifications make women can hardly look for better-paid and higher-status jobs (Haralambos, 2004).
However, the theory was being criticized that ignored the causes of gender inequality. Witz arg...
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...mitment and this is also the reason of their low pays. There are marriage career and career women. Those married women will transfer to work part-time and undemanding jobs because of the fewer responsibilities and convenient working hours, although they involve a lower pay. Besides, Hakim argues that child care responsibilities lead to the extension of part time work; therefore, it is not the main reason affecting the work for women.
Women in the labour market usually do jobs which similar to domestic tasks like teaching and child caring. Crompton and Sanderson argue that in the labour market, there are structural features interact with the individuals making individual decisions about their lives. The choices for peoples are being shaped but not to determine by the structure of the labour market.
To sum up, gender inequalities still exist in workplaces. Although
When we look at the history of women’s paid employment in Canada, we can see that society has come a long way. Previously, women’s work was in the home, in the private sphere. Her work consisted of taking care uniquely of the home and the children. Rarely, would we see women working for a wage expect for poor women; only because, their families needed the income. Mainly, the only jobs that were available for women were domestic service, a job that relates to the private sphere of the home. People believed that if a woman had paid employment, she was taking away a paycheck from a man, or she would become too manly.
These things continue many centuries but now you do not have face that much difficulty compare to the last centuries. Before, women have to stay at home and they have to take care of their small children. Government introduce the two policy, and they are child care system and equal pay for work of equal value. In child care system, government introduced the daycare. In Canada, daycare was proposed in 1970 but Quebec was exception. To continue the child care system, provincial government introduced the comprehensive family policy. This policy attempts to integrate family benefits, paid parental leave, child care and kindergarten. With these policy, women can work not as part-time but full time, and you will have an experience that normally company ask you. Second policy was equal pay for work of equal vale. Even though that not in all country, it was that women will earn same amount as men earn in any field. But in 1985, Manitoba become the first Canadian province to implement equal pay for work of equal value in the public service. And now, this policy become official in 10 of 13 Canadian jurisdictions; Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories are the exception. Inequality form did not end but even is not bad as much as it was before. Now at least, women have the authority to speak, to do anything they want. When all people judge you the way you work in company not the gender wise than gender gap in earning will be eliminate for
The article The Gender Gap in Wages insights the issue about the wage gap in the early 21st century, observing that is not actual discrimination in the workplace, but rather the type of work and time put into it that changes the wages between male and female workers. June O’Neill gives sufficient statistical data that is focused on work experience and how productivity in the home is a result of the wage gap. Her claim introduces a great amount of statistical data that shows the reader the reasons for a wage gap to exist. She is knowledgeable about the subject and is straight-forward about her point. O’ Neill’s argument is justifiable meanwhile, it can be argued that her neutrality on the wage gap does not give a specific reason as to how this
The effects on individuals has thus far revealed only part of the whole picture. When focus is shifted to workers with family situations, reports are revealing that time constraints are also connected to the shared working time between parents in households, with dual-earner based households and single parents meeting intensified challenges. Among these parents, women are even today continuing to take on the biggest share of family based responsibility and caretaking. This is thus making women workers, or single fathers, feel even more pressure than their workforce counterparts who have no children. The separation between workers who have no children and mothers or fathers with caretaking responsibilities has led to yet another growing divide that demands a change in policy that will address the specific conditions of workers and their families.
Men are likely to get hired if they have children and tend to get paid more. In contrast, women are less likely to get hired even though they have more quality and children. This is when the gender inequality come in. In this article “The Motherhood Penalty vs. the Fatherhood Bonus” the author presented the role and the impact between the roles of the genders. Michelle Budig, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst put it this way, “The inequality of gender role reveals when men get paid high for having children and women pay the biggest price for the low income” (Qtd. in Miller). According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, 71 percent of mothers are with their children working at home and 40 percent are the primary bread winner (Pew Research Center). In this perspective of women working at home and men working in career shift the qualification between them. The inequality is that employer sees the father as a commit worker and a mother as a distraction in workplaces because women have extra hours of work to do at home with their children and house chores. Claire Miller states that, “one of the worst career moves a women can make is to have children” (Claire Miller). As for the women in the United States, there are a lot of negative impact for them if they decide to have babies. The quality for them shrink to the corner while men hold the advantage of having
However, that does not mean that inequalities no longer exist between the two genders, the pay gap between men and women is one of the larger gender inequalities seen today. According to an article “ Explaining the Pay Disparity Between Women and Men in Similar Jobs” the authors state that, “ equal pay ranked higher than health care, family and medical leave, pensions and social security for most important legislative issues” (Hessaramiri,Kleiner 3). People want something done about this injustice and are looking towards the government to intervene. The Equal Pay Act is one of these interventions put in place to make employees under the same profession paychecks’ equal no matter the gender. After forty years though, the Equal Pay Act has done little to stop the pay gap from continuing. Hessaramiri and Kleiner inform us that, “ According to the Monthly Labor Review, the weekly earnings of women were lower than that of men for full time employees across all broad occupational categories” (4). Most of the time these employees suffering from the pay gap do not even realize that they are being
The institutionalized discrimination of women in the work place is nothing new or unheard of. The brunt of it has happened fairly recently as women began to enter the labor market in force less than a century ago. The affect of this discrimination has had long lasting, generation spanning affects, but as time has passed and feminism spread, the gender-gap has slowly begun to shrink.
population in the country and because of no fixed salary, some women who can actually obtain a job are only paid a third of what male employees are paid monthly. Much of the gender discr...
For centuries, women has always been dominated and controlled by men. Society has viewed women as the weaker gender and relied on men in order to survive. As time went on, things have changed, society has became more advance and so are women. During the World War II, women have increased their role in the society by replacing the men’s in the labor market and also increased their status in the society. Today, the growth of women in the work force continually to raise and so are their status. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the National Bureau of Economic Research, statistics have shown 58.1% of women were in the labor market in 2011 (USBLS) compared to employment rate during the war was 35% of women in the labor market in 1945 (Bussing-Burks). So what factors must have interested women to move from being housewife to the work force? Explanations can be derived through observations of their relationship in the household, their relative status in the society, and their rationality in decision-making.
Employers believe that any women applying for a job is bound to go the family route. This is generally called, “mommy stamp.” It is the idea that women will plateau in their careers because they can only go so far when they have a child. After they begin to start a family, employers feel like being a mother will be the new full-time job. In the article, The All-or-Nothing Workplace: Flexibility Stigma and “Opting Out” Among Professional-Managerial Women, it states, “Women, by virtue of their caregiving responsibilities in the home, are less able than men to meet the time demands of professional jobs” (Hernandez 2). This statement is an example of how employers believe that women are less competent of doing the job because they wouldn’t be as committed compared to the male. It comes to show that although females are applying for high paying occupations, they cannot leave behind the tradition of being responsible for raising the children. The result of this stamp causes women to be hired in less engaging positions and are often treated with less
In today’s society, Women perform similar jobs to men. Whether it’s blue or white collar jobs, women are always present and thriving for success balancing a life of business and family. In the job market, some are graduates of the best schools and have interned at the best firms, but are still not compensated as equally as men. Following the recent comments by the CEO of Microsoft concerning women asking for raises and how they should trust the system to install equality, the issue seems to be still present, and women’s work is not rewarded similarly to men’s.
There is much myth about what an ideal worker should be. Current situations and trends in the labor community are different, family working arrangements have time to place and there is always a switching characteristic to families nowadays. Since 1950, and due to World War II there was an increase of participation among mothers of young children. In current days, a great percent of married couples are in dual-income households where both the man and the woman work, and there are more working mothers than there are working
Furthermore, women are still expected to give up their job pursuits for children. Men, when they get married tent to earn more power. However, women lose their power or even have to give up everything that they had been working toward their whole life to bear the child who will keep the lineage for her husband’s family. “It is not false that today, almost half of infants’ mothers are employed” and the percentage of working moms has risen much over recent years. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that it is unfair for women to have to be pressured by both work and children.
In a family, women hold most of the commitment in keeping it together and the men are known to be the budgetary suppliers of the family. Women fill the role of the mother, lover, nurturer, the cook, and the cleaner. This is a staggering measure of work that she should go up against, yet over the long haul the male assumes the acknowledgment in his tendency of supporting the whole family. Since we have these desires of women and men, we disparage the capacity to attempt new things. For instance, if a woman goes out to land a position in a work field, she will be isolated against due to her sex. Furthermore, it is likewise accepted that men won't deal with the family unit duties as a women. With this a gender inequality in the family life, women and men are dealt with contrastingly past their home. Women are out of the house doing her piece of the shopping and men are out working completing things and getting paid for it. It is this part of getting paid for work that is over looked in the female point of view. Women do not get paid to hold the obligation of the family household foundation; they get the affirmation that she is doing what is instructed of her. This is gender inequality disparity that influences for the most part the women. This underestimation of woman in the workforce, suggests to society that she is strange and is dealt with so
However, women have made optimistical progress towards equality and their role in the society has been changed dramatically since the last century. Many women stepped out of their home and start to work at factories and offices. The number of working women with children has more than doubled in the past 50 years. While working conditions for women may have improved, there is a lack of appreciation for the notion that work for most women doesn't end at the door of a factory or office. Despite an increase of women's participation in the labour force, women's share of housework has hardly changed in 50 years.