Essay On Unequal Pay

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Unequal pay, or the gender pay gap, is an issue that every type of woman in the United States is affected by. This gender pay gap has continued to exist, yet has gotten smaller over the years. Regardless of the size of the pay gap, it is a situation that a large amount of people, both men and women, find to be unjustifiable. The unequal pay that exists today dates back to early on in our society. During World War I, the American labor force had both separate work and wage tracks, one for men, and another for women. This job segregation was based mostly on stereotypes of female and male roles in the U.S. economy and society. It was assumed that women were less productive than men for many jobs. Also, they were viewed as short-term workers who would marry and leave the labor force for household obligations. Therefore, they were thought to need less income than men, who were considered the main source of income in families. Because of these views, most women were confined to jobs that involved low pay, and little training. The segregated employment pattern was quickly broken in the war industries once World II began. It began to change earlier during the Great Depression, when women began to attempt to replace the earnings of their unemployed husbands. They were hired for factory work by employers seeking …show more content…

Although the Equal Pay Act was used to solve the inequality in the work force, it was an extremely limited approach to the problem, directed only to unequal pay for the same work when performed by men and women within individual establishments. Also, it did not fix the problems of a women’s limited access to jobs or the low pay for occupations they could

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