Why Do Men Pay More Than Women

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Why Are Men Payed More Than Women?
April 4, 2017 was this year’s Equal Pay Day, the day that symbolizes how far into the next year it takes for women to earn the same as men from the year before. It has been almost five decades since John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963 saying it was illegal for establishments to pay employees different wages for the same job based on their gender, race, or age. The wage gap still exists today because of gender inequality, the motherhood penalty, and each state’s difference in percentage of the pay gap.
The beginning of World War II began the major change in the labor force. Factories were transformed into making ships, guns, and ammunition while men were deployed to war, forcing them to leave their …show more content…

The estimation of when there will be full pay equality in the United States is in 2059, as of now if you compare different races of women’s earnings to a white male’s the results are astounding. Above in Figure One you can see that the smallest gap is 16% for Asian women and the largest is Hispanic women who earn 55% of a white male’s earnings (Sheth and Gould). Women today on average earn 79 cents to every dollar earned by a man. The wage gap wasn’t a problem in the beginning because men earned more because they were given a larger opportunity for education and work experience so they tended to have more which resulted in them being paid more. Today the earnings are calculated by the amount of education and work experience, as well as time spent in the work force (Leith). The LBGTQ community has the most unequal pay of all. The Williams Institute has done many studies on the wage gap and the findings were shocking as they determined, “that gay and bisexual men earn 10 percent to 32 percent less than similarly qualified heterosexual men,” in all types of jobs (Burns). Not only was that hard to believe but for transgender men and women their pay is opposite what their counterpart gender is. For example, a transgender woman’s pay is cut in a third while a transgender man’s pay increases after their transition is …show more content…

Surprisingly the lowest gap between men and women is in Washington D.C. where the gap is only 10.4%. Most government officials have the highest gap between their job descriptions for men and women. The largest gap is in Louisiana where the gap is 34.7% percent which is much larger than the average gap percentage (Sheth and Hould). The percentage of the wage gap is different and varies in every state and in every job. The variation also causes women to have a major decline in pensions, social security pay, and savings after retirement which is all based off of your annual earnings of your job.

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