Wage Discrimination against Women

The Women’s Equal Rights Movement has made dramatic progress in the last one hundred years. As a result, a woman can now vote, choose almost any career, and defend her human right to happiness. But, in spite of the progress made in the area of equal rights, wage problems in the workplace still exist which deny women equal pay for equal work.

SUCCESSES

Women are closing the gender gap in workplace and higher education. They are starting to climb the corporate ladder and are moving into managerial positions. Forty-three percent of managers are women today as opposed to the nineteen percent who were managers in 1970 ("Almost, But Not Quite, Equal" 1). Women are also receiving a higher level of education. They earned forty-five percent of the law degrees in 1994 compared to eight percent in 1972. Education is an important contributing factor to the progress being made in reducing the discrepancy in wages between genders. With women becoming better educated than 20 years ago, potential for a higher salary is greater. Today, women earn fifty percent of all college degrees and forty percent of all medical degrees. It is, perhaps, because of education that women’s wages grew, on average, twenty percent faster than men’s from 1920-1980 (Clark 174). The situation is not that fewer men have been attending college, but that a greater number of women are able, encouraged and willing to take the next step in education than ever before.

PROBLEMS

Despite all that has been accomplished, wage equality between men and women has not yet been reached. Overall, women only earn 74% of what men do in America (Equal Pay). In the higher job positions, with higher wages, there is a lack of female presence. An example of ...

... middle of paper ...

... themselves need to realize what can be accomplished and what blocks the way. And then with those complications resolved, women stand a better chance of receiving equal pay for equal work.

Works Cited

"Across Globe, Women Earn Less." The Des Moines Register 30 July 1996, sec. Business: 10.

"Almost, But Not Quite, Equal." US News & World Report 13 Jan. 1997: 1.

"Clark, Charles S., et al. "Feminism’s Future." CQ Researcher 28 Feb. 1997: 169-192

"Equal Opportunity?" Glamour Aug. 1996: 92.

Equal Pay. Home page. Mar. 1998. Feminist Women’s Health Center http://www.fwhc.org/equalpay.htm

Hankin, Joseph N., "The Gains Working Women Have Made." Vital Speeches of the Day 1 Dec. 1996: 113-115.

Koretz, Gene. "But What of the Wage Gap?" Business Week 23 Oct. 1997. 11 Oct. 1999.

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/44/b3551078.htm