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Essay on the gender pay gap in australia
Gender bias in the workplace
Gender bias in the workplace
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Background Australia is a wealthy country. Most of the nation income is generated from various different sources such as telecommunication, banking, mining and also manufacturing. Australia has an average wealth and market economy. Due to this fact, there are different companies who had landed in Australia years ago to do good business in the market. Due to the balance economy of a nation there are in numerous people all around the world travelling to Australia every day for different reasons like work and business. Gender balance in the workplace has lots of advantages. Diverse workplace welcomes men and women both and also helps to bring wide range of benefits to the organisation. There is an issue which recently came up in the news related to the work and business sector that Australia has gender …show more content…
This are areas where performance of women is much better than men. The highest pay gaps are found in female dominated industries including health care, social assistance and insurance services. According to Helen Conway, director of the Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA), there is pay gap in favour of men in every single industry. According to the fact, “Daily Mails”, views that ‘the economy is losing billions of dollars because of gender segregation’, fact that women are paid nearly (10%) less than men doing exactly the same job. Gender pay gap is increased in three industries including Administrative and support services, Wholesale trade and Manufacturing. It is also reduced in three industries such as construction, Water and Waste Services and Health care and Social assistance. According to the research of Workplace Gender Equality Agency executive manager, Dr Carla Harris said, it is clear that women are not getting the same earning opportunities as
Our society is structured according to already predetermined dimensions. Especially significant is gender. Our gender is an element that can not only define differences but also create advantages and disadvantages (unequal society 148). It therefore becomes essential to consider what gender refers to. Gender is best defined as a way of classifying people based on socially agreed distinctions that are associated with male and female anatomy (gender history 153). Gender differentiation is evident in all societies and in particular in Australia with men and women seen to take on different social roles (gender 384). This has resulted in a significantly unequal spread of life chances (gender 384). Thus creating a category of analysis that inequalities flow from (gender history 154). Differences in opportunity between men and women therefore become evident. This historically established prejudice against women. However, the women’s liberation movement in the 1960’s and 1970’s broke barriers with women gaining more power in respect to education and employment (gender 383). Despite such breakthroughs, elements of gender inequality can still be seen in Australian society. This is interesting as most Australian’s have an assumption that we are an egalitarian society that does not encourage injustice and believes everyone should have a ‘fair go’ (collective identity 167). Through the exploration of the Australian labour force and harassment, violence and discrimination towards women we can see that gender equality is growing, but still evident, in Australian society.
• Gender pay gap – where a woman doing the same job as a man gets paid 17% less
A number of factors have contributed to the gap between men’s and women’s wages. These include: occupational segregation of women into low paying jobs; lower levels of unionization for women and attitudinal barriers that have kept women from achieving equality in the workplace and undervaluation for women’s work.
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).
However, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics in 2012, only 65.3% of women were in the labour force compared to their male counterpart at 79.7% . This emphasizes the lack of respect towards women to be seen as equal to their male counterparts. This also emphasizes that more men are being employed than women in the work force.
Sexism is a major factor in the workforce.Today male and female have a hard time breaking into the opposite gender dominated fields. This has happened because of the media, it has showed us that male have certain “right” jobs, as well as female. Female still dominate traditional female professions like cosmetology jobs are 92.9 percent women working them(Wolfe). If a man were to get into cosmetology they would most likely be judged for having that job, because we stereotype that they can't have a feminine job. Women have a harder time getting into high level positions. “Women make up only 21 of the S&P’s 500 CEOs,” (Berman). This has happened because the media has set in place stereotypes that it is wrong for women to have high level positions. It is getting better, in 2013 women chief financial officers increased 35 percent at large U.S. companies from 2012 (Frier and Hymowitz). The job market for men and women is still unfair but it is starting to get equal.
Due to various countries initiatives to shrink the wage inequality between men and women wages in the work force, the gap has narrowed, respectively, which may have helped form such opinion. However, stating that the gender pay gap does not exist in today’s society, anywhere, is completely unlikely. Seeing that the gap has loosened its grasp in the working world, in other countries, the gap between pay has widened or remained stagnant. One cannot help but wonder why the gap remains consistent, even with such substantial progress made in countries where the gap has decreased. Reasons as to why gender wage gap exist so heavily, slightly differs from country to country, but the overall effect from the wage disparity is wholly evident.
Women earn 24% less than men on average, U.N. Report (April, 2015). In Australia, men had a 51% benefits over women get only 36% In terms of the employment. Wherein, UK men had a 47% benefits over women get only 35% shows quite similar. In Australia, between 2000-10, the rate of men working part time increased from 12% to 39% while women employment rate was 39% and remained steady. Whereas in UK, the rate of men working part time increased from 11% to 39% compare to women employment rate was 41% which slightly decreased. Moreover, condition of women in employment shows high rate of gender discrimination in both countries.
...rd level and within its senior executive group by 2015. Representation of women in leadership roles across the company has remained constant over the last two financial years at 27%” (Woolworth 2013). This organisation also provides flexible working hours for women employees. Moreover women are equally rewarded and valued as men. Female workers in Woolworths are more hardworking and punctual at work in compare to male staff working there.
The sexism and inequality intertwined with the work force is still a big problem today. Unlike in the early 1900’s, there is closer to an equal ratio of men to women in the work force. But women are still more present in typical jobs such as secretaries, nurses, and waitresses, whereas men are more present in jobs such as construction, CEO’s, and politicians. I experienced something similar at my place of work. I’m a barista at my local coffee shop, and all of my coworkers are female. Any time my boss is hiring, there are very few male resumes that come in. But if there are any mechanical problems, the first person she calls is her husband or father to come and fix it. This clear division between men and women is one of the causes of the gender gap. The gender gap is the difference in pay between men and women who work the same job. Unless something changes soon, the chances that I will be paid less than a male doing the same job in my future
The most notable subject of female inequality at the work is pay gap. It is a major
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
Gender equality is about equal opportunity for men and women to identify their individual potential. One must be able to benefit from their participation in society and contribute to the economic and social development of their country (Australian Government. 2009). Through multiple reviewed literature on gender inequality, the overall concept within many sociological readings was the way gender inequality socially relates to employment and careers. There are three separate themes that intersect within the written literature that will be discussed. First, gender differences in historical social roles have created stereotypes on the contemporary outlooks of the social attitude. Secondly, through beliefs and values, career pathways and choices have become gendered from factors of culture and society. Lastly, occupational segregation within the workforce is still dominant, but more equality is breaking through for the future. In this research, I will identify the factors that inter-link gender within different parts of society
Gender Inequality at a Workplace Historically, males and females normally assume different kinds of jobs with varying wages in the workplace. These apparent disparities are widely recognized and experienced across the globe, and the most general justification for these differences is that they are the direct outcomes of discrimination or traditional gender beliefs—that women are the caregivers and men are the earners. However, at the turn of the new century, women have revolutionized their roles in the labor market. Specifically in industrialized societies, the social and economic position of women has shifted. Despite the improving participation of women in the labor force and their ameliorating proficiency and qualifications, the labor force is still not so favorable to women.
Gender inequality is an issue that must be addressed if Australia as a modern society wishes to continue to progress. While the elimination of inequality cannot be instantaneous and may take a few years, it is something that can and should be fixed, and for which solutions are available and simple. While the problem of gender discrimination in general may never be fully eradicated, workplace specific discrimination can be resolved by closing the pay gap between men and women performing the same or equal tasks, and recognising the necessity and value of currently undervalued tasks performed in the majority by women, such as nursing and family care. If this advancement does not occur, stereotypes about the roles of women and their place in the family home and in work and society will be encouraged, and further gender inequality will be exacerbated.