Gender Wage Gap Affects Women Today

Sabreena Fearn

English IV

Ms. Surrett

4/30/15

The Gender Wage Gap and How It Affects Women Today There are many people that argue that the gender wage gap is a myth, or that it doesn’t exist. It is, in fact, an issue that all women in the workforce face today because women of all ages, races, and education levels continue to earn less on average than men. Some of the topics that will be discussed in this paper are the reason why women earn 78 percent of what men earn, how different occupations only account for a part of the wage gap, why women make up the majority of low paying jobs, why closing the gender wage gap should be a goal for all women, and the difference that can occur from the gender pay gap. Like it was stated in the introductory

Difference in the occupations of men and women is only a part of the wage gap problem. The jobs that are predominantly done by women pay less on average than the jobs predominantly done by men. If women were paid the same as comparable men, the poverty rate for women would be cut in half. It was the Institute for Women’s Policy Research that said, “women tend to be in poverty at greater rates than men.” According to data collected in 2013, 55.6 percent of 45.3 million people living in poverty in the US were women, that is over half. Gender stereotypes underlie in the decisions on how much dollar value to place on some kinds of work and not on others. A female first-grade teacher usually makes less than a male video-game software developer. For the longest time, women have withstood the hassle of everyday housework and the caring of children and the elderly for no pay at all. Women are such strong, key figures in society and yet they continue to earn 78 percent of what men

This could contribute to the wage gap, but even after you factor in the fact that women often work in different occupations and industries than men, as well as differences in work experience, union status, education and race, 41% of that gap is still unexplained. The segregation of women in the workforce majorly affects the closing of the wage gap. Women also face a lot of discrimination in the workplace based on their race and gender. Something that occurs often with discrimination in the workforce is a consent decree. A consent decree is defined as “an agreement or settlement to resolve a dispute between two parties without admission of guilt (in a criminal case) or liability (in a civil case) and most often refers to such a type of settlement in the United States.” Most commonly with discrimination in employment, the remedies include sexual harassment training, the introduction of new grievance procedures, supervisory training or revised performance management, and reward