Gender Wage Gap
The gender wage gap is a well-known aspect of our gender inequality in America. In April of 2013 the 50th anniversary of the equal pay act of 1963 was celebrated, this act was the declaration of "unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job" (huffingtonpost) when signed. However we have even yet to see any changes 50 years later. To this day woman are still getting paid approximately 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Now this may seem like a very small amount, but if added up into an entire years income it can make a significant difference in pay checks between men and woman. The gender wage gap is an important and controversial issue in American and it needs to be solved in order to regain equality between men and woman.
First, the gender wage gap is a huge political issue because parties can not agree on the significance of it. In a poll done by the Huffingtonpost it showed that 52% of democrats believe we need new pay laws, 27% of independents agree and only 14% of republicans agree. From this poll you can see that no one can agree on the importance on refining equal pay laws. Well here is the problem, many americans believe that men have more opportunities then woman but many do not believe that the answer lies in new laws (Huffingtonpost). President Obama has made the gender wage gap a key issue this year however, Republicans in congress have stopped Obama's efforts. For example Obama signed an executive order in which increased accountability for federal contractors in order to prevent wage discrimination. The next day GOP senators blocked consideration for the Paycheck Fairness act. This act was designed to increase reporting requirements for a...
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...that woman then make only about 75- 80 precent (aauw).
There are steps that need to be made in order to regain equality for woman. Companies need to make salary audits that monitor and clearly address gender bias pay gaps. This keeps the company fair and ethical. Woman need to speak up, and discuss and negotiate with their employers for fair pay. Improving on communication skills with ones employer can help close that gap. Clearly congress has many oppositions and disagreements with current president Obama, but if congress keeps pushing for new laws or at least something to make it easier for woman to receive equal pay the gap can eventually be closed. Providing laws to protect woman equality is the most powerful way to ensure that woman will receive what they deserve. America needs to see equality rise for the hard working woman in the country.
Equal pay is a family issue. Women are a huge part of the United States labor force and they are working in positions in fields that are largely dominated by men. When a woman is not paid fairly they do not suffer alone their entire family suffers. To make sure there is a change people most start voting for more wage equality legislation and for the younger population that cannot vote yet they can help the change by speaking out against the wage gap since they are the generation of technology.
Under the Equal Pay Act of 1863, the gender wage gap supposedly no longer exists, but the facts are that “as of 2012 women in the U.S. earn 77 cents to a man's dollar” (ProQuest Staff). Men try to justify this unjust statistic by saying that “wage gap isn't necessarily the result of discrimination” (ProQuest Staff). Although, there is no logical reasoning behind it. When women are actually given the same jobs as men they may be paid the same but typically, they are not able to reach the higher positions in the company that men do. Even with their 77 cents to a man’s dollar, “women still tend to bear a larger responsibility for child care and other household matters within families” (Mazorelle). Women are not given the opportunity to earn as much as men and then they still have to take on a majority of the responsib...
This social justice issue is important in the community because it impacts women by disrespecting them, it makes women feel like they are not valued. Our central question is does pay equal respect? If pay equals respect then women are definitely not being respected. Society believes that men have that higher power so they should get paid more, this is a . It impairs the ability of women and families to buy homes and pay for college education, it limits their total lifetime earnings, savings, and benefits, which makes women much more vulnerable to poverty in retirement.This issue expands even into nonprofits as of nonprofits with budgets
The fight between men and women and equal rights and pay has been going on for many years. The wage gap is contributed by many factors like sex, race discrimination, education, but manly overall how men and women have been viewed as. Men are paid more because they work “harder and are stronger” where’s woman’s jobs are “less work and not as strong” therefore, that’s why the pay and the job occupations is different. Over the past century, American women have made tremendous strides in increasing their labor market experience and their skills (The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations). The pay gap goes beyond wages and is even greater when we look at workers’ full compensation packages. Compensation includes not just wages, but also
Fay Faraday, a Toronto human right lawyer argued, “The pay gap fosters an environment in which women have less economic security and less economic power”. It is proven women are paid less than the same job performed by others. This creates women to lose their self esteem and self confidence. With unequal pay, especially for women, this causes less buying power and less savings for the future. Furthermore, “The push for increasing women’s wages started in the 1960s with the Equal Pay Act, individual lawsuits and action by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The message, then and now, is so powerful that when people hear it they begin to take action. For example, the California Fair Pay Act, authored by state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, passed with bipartisan support and gives California women the strongest fair pay protection in the nation” (Sure, Equal Pay Day is about what’s in women’s paychecks. It’s also about fairness., The Washington Post). Women’s rights have been fought in the past but now they need to be reinforced and acted upon. Women have been fighting for many years, it is now time those rights be listened to and peace can finally be restored. The Equal Pay Act was not only fought for equal paychecks but for fair pay for similar work. Unequal pay will never be solved without understanding the importance of
On June 10, 1963 President John F. Kennedy signed the historic Equal Pay Act of 1963 into federal law. The act was one of the first federal antidiscrimination laws to address specifically the gender wage gap, it became illegal to pay men and women a different salary if they are at the same place doing similar work. After the Equal Pay Act, it took forty four years for the gap to close from fifty nine cents to eighteen cents. Although the act was signed over fifty years ago, the gender wage gap remains a prominent issue throughout America. On average women’s pay is seventy seven cents of a man’s one dollar, with an even wider gap for women of color. African American women earn sixty four cents to a white man’s one dollar, while Latina and Hispanic women only earn fifty four cents. While the gap is not as bad as it once was, at the rate it is going now, less than half a penny a year, the will gap not close for another 124 years. Equal Pay Day is a national movement working towards closing this wage gap between men and women.
Throughout the history of the world, discrimination in all forms has been a constant struggle, whether it is race, gender, religion, appearance or anything else that makes one person different from another, it is happening every day. One significant discrimination problem that is affecting many women takes place in the work place. As of recently the gender wage gap has become a major topic for discussion. The gender wage gap is the average difference between men and women aggregated hourly earnings. Women who are equally trained and educated, and with the same experience are getting paid way less than men. In 2015, female full time workers earned eighty cents for every dollar earned by men.
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
In the recent article of 2016, “What is the Gender Pay Gap and is it Real?”, the authors Elise Gould, Jessica Schieder, and Kathleen Geier give an ample amount of statistics that prove that women are paid less than men; for example, a woman was paid less than a man of the same education, experience, and occupation. In Kevin Miller’s article “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,” he states that full-time working women get paid 80 percent of what men are paid (Miller). According to the two articles mentioned above, factors such as age, stereotypes, and ethnicity can be the cause of the gender wage gap. In the 2016 article of “Four Ways the Gender Pay Gap Isn’t All It Seems,” author Simon Maybin claims that the gender wage gap does not exist
In 1963 president John F. Kennedy signed the equal pay act that mandated man and woman to be paid equally for equal work. That was 50 years ago and if we look at the recent data not a lot of progress has been made since Kennedy signed the act many years ago. The US Census Bureau states that male and female pay differ from one another from 15% to 50% depending on the work sector. According to the AAUW IN 2013 among full time year round workers, woman were paid 78% percent of what men were paid. The gender gap pays affect all woman but it is even more drastic when we compare woman of color. Asian American woman seem to
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).
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.
For many years in United States, equal salary pay for women has been a major issue that women have been fighting for decades. This began back in World War II, when the National Labor Board urged equalize the salary rates for women with the same rates that males were getting of the same professions. (Rowen) Although, traditionally most women do not work to provide for there family and there are not so many independent women during World War II. After World War II more women lost their jobs to veterans returning to the workforce. Women in the workforce after the war have been discriminated ever since. The idea of women as weak and cannot perform there jobs
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
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