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pay inequality between men and women essay
wage gap between men and women introduction
pay inequality between men and women essay
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Gender discrimination is not a new topic, but it is oftentimes a controversial one. The differing political groups in the United States is a good example of how certain groups of people do not think the issue of a gender pay gap needs to be addressed. People on both sides of the political divide have dodged questions on whether or not the gender pay gap is a real issue and if it should be addressed. While some politicians may be divided, most scholars believe that having a gender gap does hamper the countries economy. For example, closing the gender pay gap in the United States should boost the economy by three to four percentage points (Bassett 2014), as this would introduce a group of people who will have more earning and spending potential …show more content…
These issues are not blatantly propagated by people, but these are considered “nonconscious cognitive processes” (Weichsellbaumer 2005, 327) Normally the gender pay gap is decreased by allowing women into higher education and into more selective universities, (Bobbitt-Zeher 1-2) while also imposing laws that help to generate a societal change in the way that women are viewed. Sometimes that societal change happens because women are allowed to receive an education; and then they are able to implement the change needed. Education (Bobbitt-Zeher 2) seems to be one of the stepping-stones of equality because once women have that they are able to fight for equality by becoming part of the system and attempting to change it. Cuba is a good example of a country that has made an effort to close a gender gap in their society, and they really only succeeded in allowing women into higher education. (Gonzalez) They have implemented laws that prohibit blatant discrimination against women in higher education and in society at large, but these laws were not enacted or pushed by the Cuban women and have not succeeded in erasing the pay gap or changing antiquated views of women’s place in society (Hees 152). The attributed reason for these laws not erasing a gender pay gap is because women were not the ones fighting for it and the stereotypical female household roles are still …show more content…
Culture is a big influencer in how women are perceived in the workplace; generally the cultural stereotype of a woman belonging in the home causes women’s work to be devalued. As previously mentioned in Cuba these gender stereotypes are incredibly prevalent and can explain why women are paid less for the same work. Across the world this mindset prevails, in Korea a study done on laborers showed that even with no difference in education between the sexes, there was still a devaluation of women’s work. “This study indicate that the theories of culturally given gender stereotypes and labor market risk/cost are more likely to explain the remaining gender difference in labor earnings and other employment conditions.” (Lee, Cho, Lee, 2001,
In the workplace environment it is a known fact that women are passed over for higher positions that would allow them to earn higher wages. Author of “Workplace Gender Discrimination and the Implicit Association Test" Jo- Ann Kadola stated, “Women earn 18 % less per hour than men working the same job, with the same title, with the same credentials even when a woman has a higher education.” (Kadola23) This is known as the gender gap, it happens in all occupations whether in management, directors or any high level position. Overall men and women never earn the same pay for the same job. This is known to be a worldwide fact. On every job women are always asked to prove or provide credentials for a job that men are able to obtain without proof. Kadola also stated, “Women have to show skills more often, they are required to take or be more responsible than men.” (Kadola24) Men are generally respected more. Their opinions hold more value. Men tend to have more freedom in making decisions. When it comes to merit raises they will receive a higher percentage based on the fact that they are men. When women enter the workplace it is a perceived notion that she will get married and start a family. Therefore a working mother is looked down upon based on the fact she is no staying home caring
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.
The second approach to explaining gender-based wage inequality is human capital. Human capital acknowledges the fact that often times women invest in human capital that will have lower market returns because they avoid getting involved in career areas that may interfere with their familial duties later in life. Because women invest in less or lower returning human capital they tend to make lower wages than men who invest in more valuable human capital.
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 persistence of the gender wage gap in contemporary American society is not new. However, in 2015, the issue started garnering much public attention, especially since Patrica Arquette’s Oscar speech. Arquette asserted, “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all,” upon receiving the Best Supporting Actress award. Arquette is not the only high-profile Hollywood actress to address the issue: Diane Keaton, Meryl Streepe, Gwyneth Paltrow among many others have all shared their experiences of gender wage gap in interviews.
The pay for women who do the same amount of work annually as men is thousands of dollars less. This is an issue that I feel strongly about because I have a lot of women in my family that I believe should be given the same respect and appreciation for their hard work. I think it is because men see that women have changed over the years. They see that women do just as much work as they do. But they do not believe that they should get equal pay. The initial argument is that women are needed in this world just as much as men are which is very true. Like in the article “The Gender Pay Gap Industry” by Catherine Rampell, it sh...
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.
These two are a major concern for me because I feel when we talk about unequal pay we fail to include the intersections of race and ethnicity that also play a role in the wage gap that exist but when the wage gap is brought up we typically hear that women make 78 cent to every mans dollar which is incorrect if you are not a white women it is less compared to the dollar every man make which is also inadequate if you aren’t a white male. According to an article by Rebecca Leber on newrepublic.com, “Hispanic women earn 54 percent, followed by black women at 64 percent, and Native American at 65 percent”. When we bring up gender inequality we should be more inclusive and understand the actual facts about the wage gap. With gender race is closely related because at first observation of a person these are the first traits that stand out to us. We cannot address a fact about a specific person without looking at them as a whole and their intersections that may come into play as well. Having your gender also hold you back from a specific job you because it is seen as a typical male job, but you have the right qualifications is another big issue. Gender is connected to your economics when in essence these two topics should be separate and have no relation or correlation. Socially and culturally when we look at any form of media women are always shown as aspiring to marriage and have kids, women being domesticated, physically weaker than men, submissive to men, never shown as the hero, and women are typically never shown in being in charge. Media has become something that is very important in this generation media also plays a big role in telling us this is how a woman acts or this is how a man acts. When young girls and women watch TV, read newspapers, use social media, these messages and images they portray instills ideas in these women and girls to make them believe this is how they are
“Gender inequality exacerbates economic inequality and economic inequality, in turn, reinforces gender inequality” (Oxfam Canada, 3). Primarily due to sexist assumptions about a women’s emotions, her choice to start family’s mid-career, and her ability to perform tasks as efficiently/ well as men are constant. Emotional stereotypes about women would be things such as: women are overly emotional, sadness, guiltiness, shamefulness, irritability, and fearfulness. These assumptions are made on a daily basis by men who face quite the opposite preconceptions. Men are characterized to be similar to a leader because of their “assertiveness” and, “controlled emotions” . Women also are also the sex that carry children, and require maternity leave, even though paternal leave also exists. Employers are often reluctant to hire women by the chance they will become pregnant and need to be on leave for a year on the company’s dollar. While women are 15% more interested in being promoted or taking on a larger responsibility within the workplace, men take up more than 95% of Fortune 500 CEOs. This goes to show that regardless of the interest, demand, and effort women put in to be promoted, the men will almost always receive the position. Both due to the wage gap and the difficulty women have to be promoted to higher positions, poverty affects a
Closing the wage gap between men and women is a continuing struggle today in nations all over the world. In many occupations women are paid less overall than their male counterparts. One nation, however, is making strides to bring this disparity in wages into the light. British law will soon require large companies to publish information about the salaries paid to their male and female employees. While this is a great step forward in recognizing the gender pay gap, many women also face many other obstacles to getting equal pay such as the “Mommy Tax” that reporter Ann Crittenden talks about in her piece of the same name (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey 337). Another obstacle for women in the work place that ties into the “Mommy Tax” is how women are generally
Today in the United States, men make more than women in various sectors, including education and other trades favoring women workers. The gap gets bigger when comparing the wages earned by men to those of women in jobs favoring men workers such as construction or other physically demanding jobs. Women are less likely to work those jobs, therefor; men have the advantage of having more experience and get paid better. In addition, employers would rather hire a man instead of a woman because they believe that a man will be able to sustain the difficulty of the job and work longer hours which crate a disadvantage for women because they are unable to gain experience and become skilled in that certain field. Gender pay gap based on this information is explained as the result of the discrimination of employers toward the feminine sex in terms of pay, which discourage them to work certain jobs leading to create a bigger gap due to the lack of
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
The home economics theory is used in explaining the wage gap because it examines the relationship between the amount of time and effort put into working and the varying incomes that correspond to the amount of time being worked. In the scholarly article “Working from home and the gender gap in earnings for self-employed US Millennials”, Jessica Simon explores the gender differences in terms of self-employment for millennials who are working from home. The increase in women’s self-employment along with the tendency for women to work from home suggests that working in their own home is becoming the new work environment for women, which is why it is essential to study the economic consequences. Based off of a few theories of women’s wage and self-employment earnings, Simon argues that working from home will be negatively related to women’s earnings, but not to men’s earnings. In order to support her thesis’, she conducted a study using a population-based survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, which allowed her to compare home-based and non-home-based
The another large group of people affected by discrimination in the labor market are women. Women more often than men meet on their way to a career glass ceilings, limited access to management , lower wages for the same work, and the enormous requirements for the appearance. Moreover, due to their maternal privileges, they have hard time in getting a job.
Gender discrimination is due treated differently depending on the gender of the people rather than occurring due to differences in men and women. Although our society seems to treat equally everyone, discrimination still exists anywhere. Even though the government asserts men and women equality, discrimination against women happens all over the workplace. Nearly thirty percent of women still feel that gender discrimination is a major problem in the workplace and report experiencing discrimination (Giapponi and McEvoy 137). Career women think if they were male they would be paid more. Despite the federal law of Title VII of the Civil Right Act of 1964, which prohibits employers from discriminating against on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion, women still persist to have a problem with discrimination in hiring, wage, promotion and pregnancy in the workplace (Corbin, Reed and Duvall 928). For example, females were denied being hired in the digital cable company, a Parma, in Ohio, even if they had better qualifications than males who were hired by the company. The federal agency charged the company $75,000 for the sex discrimination (“Digital cable” par. 1). Even though females are capable, this evidence shows that employers favored male applicant despite of their less