The Pay Gap

1096 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Discrimination against women

The war in pay inequity in the United States has been raging since the 1940s. This paper is focused on the pay differences among men, women, and mothers and why it exists. The government has made strives to close the income wage gap between men and women, however it still exists and must be dealt with. Among women, deciding to bear children has greatly impacted earnings potential, retirement, and career choices. As more women decide to go to college and earn degrees, there is still a disparity in income in the labor market. Forty percent of the pay gap that exists cannot be explained by occupation, race, or experience.
When analyzing gender differentials in pay, economists commonly focus on male-female differences in skills and on differences in the treatment of equally qualified men and women (i.e., discrimination) (Blau & Kahn, 1994). Women are a nurturing type so they often land jobs or careers in the “pink” collar field of teaching, nursing, and taking care of children to name a few. Most often the physical abilities and attributes that women possess is the driving factor in career choice. The differences in the male and female body involve more than just physical appearance such as height and weight; they also involve physical ability (White, B. www.ehow.com).
Women on average have less experience than men (Blau & Kahn, 2013). This statement is over exaggerated. President Obama said, “Women make up about half the workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.” The 23-cent gender pay gap is simply the difference between the average earnings of all men and women working full-time. It does not account for the differences in occupations, posit...

... middle of paper ...

...se it will affect our children. We cannot “silently” discriminate on the basis of male and female or being a mother. The question is why does a gap in pay exist? As women acquire higher education degrees, it’s not making a difference in the labor market. Being a mother has been seen as a negative attribute when they wish to return to the work force. Part of the trend seen in the income wage gap is because women are choosing careers that are considered to be “pink” collar. Part of the blame should be on the “boss” or employer. He or she is to blame for the 40% income wage difference that exists in full time and part time workers. President Kennedy promised to close the income wage gap that existed during his time as President, yet constant strives by Congress has not closed it yet. Once again, does the U.S. need a female President to do something about this?

Show More
Related

  • Wage Inequality And The Texas State Government

    1311 Words  | 3 Pages

    The reality of wage differences between men and women is that above all changes women continue to earn less than men. Countless arguments have promoted that wage inequality has changed and that everyone finally receives an equal amount of pay. “For women of color, the gap is largest of all: In 2006, black and Hispanic women earned 86 and 87 cents on the white man’s dollar, respectively,” (Mcswane 2). If a woman is lucky enough she will get an equal pay compared to a man doing the same job. But it is challenging for a woman of a minority background to achieve this. Not only are women paid less because of their sex, but also because of their race. There seems to be a mentality that because someone is a woman and a minority that they cannot do the same job as men or that women do not have the same education as the men, so employers do not have to pay them the same. “When the numbers are broken down by district, they 're pretty hard to ignore. Women in Texas are being utterly screwed financially, according to the data compiled by AAWU, with women earning anywhere from 66 percent of what men do in some districts, to the top end of things, which is about 89 percent,” (Leicht 4). The proof cannot be ignored. It i...

    Read More

  • Wage Gap Essay

    1193 Words  | 3 Pages

    The wage gap is a major issue that is constantly brought up in the work place. Numerous people use the term “wage gap” to state how gender can affect somebody 's income. There has always been an understanding that men typically made more money than women. For a long time, women were not allowed to work; therefore men were in charge of “bringing home the bacon”. However, times have changed and there are various situations where a household is centered off a women’s’ income. Females can become single mothers who have a responsibility to care for a child(s). Responsibilities can include monthly payments of water and electric bills and even weekly payments towards groceries. Women have to acquire enough money so that they are able

    Read More

  • Gender Pay Gap Analysis

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    Additionally, we believed men deserved to have higher power by getting more money than women. After some research, we think it’s not fair that women make less than men who have the same education and the same job. In the long run, it can make it hard for women to support their families. We found out that the gender pay gap is a “complex issue with many causes”, which are often inter-related. It seems that the direct cause of this issue is discrimination. We also found out that inequality starts early; just one year out of college, college-educated women working full-time earned $32,000 compared to $42,000 for college-educated men working

    Read More

  • Gender Payage Gap Essay

    1384 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Equal Pay

    1040 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pay equity programs attempt to address the undervaluation for work traditionally or historically done by women. Pay equity (also referred to as “comparable worth”) programs require a gender-neutral analysis of comparative work. A variety of very different jobs are compared based on a composite of the skill, effort and responsibility of a job and the conditions under which the job is generally done. The comparison determines the relative worth of those jobs to the achievement of a firm’s objectives, under the proposition that equal contribution merits equal compensation. Where female-dominated jobs in the workplace are found to be of equal or comparable value to male-dominated jobs but paid below the level of the male jobs or payline, then all employees in those female-dominated jobs are entitled to receive pay equity adjustments.

    Read More

  • Gender Gap In Pay

    1584 Words  | 4 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • pay equity

    366 Words  | 1 Pages

    With a record 64 million women in the workforce, pay discrimination hurts the majority of American families. Families lose $200 billion in income annually to the wage gap—an average loss of more than $4,000 for each working family. In addition, wage discrimination lowers total lifetime earnings, thereby reducing women’s benefits from Social Security and pension plans.

    Read More

  • Gender Wage Gap Essay

    1711 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Sexism in the Workplace

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...

    Read More

  • Discrimination of Women in the Workplace

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    It is very important to be concerned about the issue because it is constantly increasing throughout the United States. It upsets me that women are paid less than men because women have the same ability and work ethic as men do, but they are looked at differently. According to AAUW, women make 77 percent of what men make. This rate hasn’t changed since 2002 (Hill, 2013). Statistics show that women will never make as much as men due to the thought of never being comparable to men (Williams, 2013).

    Read More

  • Inequality In The Workplace

    783 Words  | 2 Pages

    For many decades, women have faced inequalities in the workforce. At one point, they were not allowed to work at all. Although women's rights have improved and are now able to work alongside men, they are still treated unfairly. According to the 2012 U.S. Census, women’s earnings were “76.5 percent of men’s” (1). In 2012, men, on average, earned $47,398 and women earned only $35,791.

    Read More

  • Paid Pay Gap Analysis

    1356 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gender and various forms of discrimination are created by the United States’ parental leave policy, violating multiple UN sustainable goals. Correlations between the United States’ current policy under the FMLA and the pay gap have been researched. The results of this indicate that “all too often, the pay gap widens when new mothers are forced to take unpaid leave after giving birth” (Neckermann 2). A widened pay gap means that women will earn even less money than men for the same occupation and hours worked.

    Read More

  • Gender Pay Gap Essay

    725 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Gender Inequality at a Workplace

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    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 of 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. The opportunities available for women in the market are not as diverse as those presented to men. Still, the construct of gender ideology influences how employers undertake economic decisions, and that is why companies still have jobs labelled as “men’s work” and occupations categorized as “women’s work.” Indeed, the pervasiveness of gender differences in labor markets is undeniably true, specifically with respect to salary gap between men and women, occupational gender segregation of men and women, and the challenge that women face in terms of juggling their time and attention between their career and family life.

    Read More

  • Gender Bias And The Workplace

    727 Words  | 2 Pages

    Despite government regulations to promote equality within the workplace, women’s salaries continue to lag behind males in similar career with similar experiences. According to research performed by Blau & Kahn (2007) “women salaries averaged about 60% of men’s until the 1970s and rose to nearly 80% by the 1990s” (as cited in Bendick, Jr. & Nunes, 2012, p.244). Today, women on average earn approximately $.81 for every dollar that men earn in the United States (Guy and Fenley P.41 2014).

    Read More

More about The Pay Gap

Open Document