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Problems and solution of gender inequality
Unequal pay for women
Women's unequal pay
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Recommended: Problems and solution of gender inequality
All these policies and legislation have impacts on the eradication of the gender gap in the UK construction industry in different ways and the combination of policies influence the current status of the gender imbalance issue.
3.4.2 Government policies and legislation
Bridging the gender gap has been extremely important to the UK government for many years and various policies and legislation have been implemented to achieve this. The Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act 1919 helped women to enter their professions for the first time. In an opening statement it is provided that:
‘a person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation’ (Legislation, 2016).
Due to antagonistic attitudes to women employment during the post war economic crisis, the legislation did not work in practice and proved inadequate from the women’s perspective.
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UK equal pay legislation has had radical effects on grading and pay, however, after four decades since the Equal Pay Act was introduced the gender pay gap for median earnings of full-time employees is 9.4 per cent (Office for National Statistic, 2015). Followed by Equal Pay Act in 1975 the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced. The Act prohibits discrimination on the ground of sex implies that anyone who doesn’t comply can face legal consequences. At that time both the Equal Pay act and the Sex discrimination Act seem to be too radical to introduce at once; before these were freely implemented the public attitudes needed to
Despite legislation for equal opportunities, sexism is still evident in the workplace. Women have made great advancements in the workforce and have become an integral part of the labor market. They have greater access to higher education and as a result, greater access to traditionally male dominated professions such as law. While statistics show that women are equal to men in terms of their numbers in the law profession, it is clear however, that they have not yet achieved equality in all other areas of their employment. Discrimination in the form of gender, sex and sexual harassment continues to be a problem in today’s society.
In “Exploiting the Gender Gap” Warren Farrell argues that the issue of disparity between men and women’s wages does not exist. Farrell provides multiple statistics and research that contradict the ever prominent “fact” put out by the media that women are paid less than men. He then covers a range of personal examples that strengthen his argument. He, subsequently, moves beyond the simplicity of wage disparity and brings the focus of his attention to the focus on discrimination.
Gaze, G (2009) ‘The Sex Discrimination Act after 25 years: What is its role in eliminating gender inequality and discrimination in Australia?’, Insights, vol.7,p.13-17, viewed 5 October 2011, .
The first legislation I am going to be talking about is the Pay Equity Act. The act was passed in order to restore sex-based wage discrimination in Ontario workplaces. The Equity Act applies to all public sector employees and private. In general the act identifies the rate of pay by comparing payment to female job classes with those paid to male job classes of similar value. In non-unionized workplaces, employers are having the freedom to review the Pay Equity Plan and make recommendations in order to change it. An example of the Pay Equity Act would be if you have a female and male both working as a swampier for an oil field company. They both have the same job responsibilities and work the same hours. If the boss of the company where to pay the male more because he was stronger and in general male and pay the women less that would be a violation. The women would have the right to contact Human Resources and file a complaint against her boss, and get the same rate of pay prior to the male. The Pay equity act in my opinion is important in the workplace because it creates equality and minimizes stereotypes against women in the workplace. You never want to be in a business or visit one that has an awkward atmosphere related to se...
Throughout the world, discrimination in all forms has continued to be a constant struggle; whether it’s racial, gender based, religion, beliefs, appearance or anything that makes one person different from another, it’s an everyday occurrence. A major place that discrimination is occurring at is in the workplace. One of the largest problems discrimination issues is believed to be gender. Women, who have the same amount of experience as men are not getting paid at the same rate as men, these women also are equally trained and educated. According to the article Gender Pay, it was discovered in 2007 that a woman makes 81 cents for every dollar a man earns.(“Gender Pay”) . This shouldn’t be happening in today’s society for the fact the society lived in today is suppose to be more accepting. Men are viewed as being more popular, valuable and having higher powers than women. The Reason Discrimination is involved in the equal pay equal work is because of the significance it has to how some businesses pay their employees.
The first significant equality legislation in the UK was the Equal Pay Act 1970 . However, the issue of equal pay in the workplace can be traced back to the 19th century. This essay will analyse how economic and social factors of the 19th and 20th century were the reasons for highlighting the issue of equal pay in the workplace. However, with the gender pay gap standing at 19.2 per cent in 2015 , there can be no defining reason for equal pay in the workplace. Consequently, this essay will then discuss how equality legislation has challenged unequal pay in the workplace, but in its reactive approach has failed its objective. Furthermore, this essay will then discuss the remedies for equal pay in the workplace by analysing the impact on both
The participation of females in the labour force is a contemporary issue, which has seen much discussion and debate. This is because females have sought to overcome inequality...
However, that does not mean that inequalities no longer exist between the two genders, the pay gap between men and women is one of the larger gender inequalities seen today. According to an article “ Explaining the Pay Disparity Between Women and Men in Similar Jobs” the authors state that, “ equal pay ranked higher than health care, family and medical leave, pensions and social security for most important legislative issues” (Hessaramiri,Kleiner 3). People want something done about this injustice and are looking towards the government to intervene. The Equal Pay Act is one of these interventions put in place to make employees under the same profession paychecks’ equal no matter the gender. After forty years though, the Equal Pay Act has done little to stop the pay gap from continuing. Hessaramiri and Kleiner inform us that, “ According to the Monthly Labor Review, the weekly earnings of women were lower than that of men for full time employees across all broad occupational categories” (4). Most of the time these employees suffering from the pay gap do not even realize that they are being
Women have faced gender wage discrimination for decades. The gender pay gap is the difference between what a male and a female earns. It happens when a man and a woman standing next to each other doing the same job for the same number of hours get paid different salaries. On average, full-time working- women earn just “77 cents for every dollar a man earn.” When you compare a woman and a man doing the same job, “the pay gap narrows to 81 percent (81%)” (Rosin). Fifty-one years ago, in order to stop the gender gap discrimination, Congress enacted the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The act states that all women should receive “equal pay for equal work”. Unfortunately, even in 2014 the gender pay gap persists and even at the highest echelons of the corporate; therefore, the equal pay act is a failure.
This issue has as affected both past and present society. In any democratic society, this is a concern that is to be taken more seriously. Australia has dealt with gender equality of wages for a long period and nowhere in Australia’s history have women and men’s wages been equal. Due to this significant gap, women seem to be
Gender stratification can be described as unequal power, wealth, and privileges between men and women. This stratification is more generally aimed at women who are oppressed in the work place, economic class status, and many other aspects of life because of their gender. We can blame this on the patriarchal culture that we prescribe too, where males hold primary power and privileges in our society. Two of the most common aspects of gender stratification that we see in the United States includes the wage gap between men and women and the violence that women face. There are many more aspects to gender stratification, however, these two topics seem to be a gender stratification problem all over the world.
Gender inequality specifies to unequal treatment or approach of individuals based on their gender. It occurs from differences in socially constructed gender roles as well as biologically through chromosomes, brain structure, and hormonal differences. In 2006, the World Economic Forum introduced The Global Gender Gap Index. It is a framework that captures the magnitude and capacity of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress. The index measures national gender gaps on political, economic, education and health based criteria, and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparisons across regions and income groups, over time. The rankings are mainly designed to create a greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them.
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.
Sam Smethers, chief executive of The Fawcett Society, an organization that works towards gender equality, believes that in addition to shaming companies, there needs to be penalties put in place that will help force companies to change. Others, like Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of a business lobbying organization, say that pay brackets for companies does not paint the whole picture of the company, which may include both part and full-time workers. Both of these topics contribute to the cause of the gender wage gap that Britain is trying to close with their new law, although it does not address these particular causes specifically. A gendered division of labor refers to “a division of duties between men and women under which women have the main responsibility for home and nurturing and men are mainly active in the public sphere” (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey G3). This idea was initially supposed to keep women out of the work force all together, but failing that to at least shame women into both domestic and civic duties.
The gender issues in today’s society are issues to discuss because they are tainting the lives of people from an early age. This is important because girls and boys are showing increasing levels of insecurities that are arising due to fundamental gender issues in society. The masculine stereotype is one the most prevailing causes of gender issues in society, especially the issue of sexism. Our society must address this issue because the cycle of sexism only feeds into peoples’ insecurities. Men should not feel obligated to objectify women to feel masculine and women should not feel like they must be sensual and beautiful to have value. The stereotypes that are being placed on men and young boys effect the attitudes of the women around them and creates a cycle of hypersexualization and sexism, leaving the relationships between genders tainted and women feeling less confident in themselves. By changing the way people think men and women are supposed to be, we can change the way our society values one another and in turn, become a more equal and respectful society.