Gender Pay Gap In The UK

First of all, the gender pay is a real problem in the world, despite what many think. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the gender pay gap is “the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for doing the same work”. This is important because many people think that the gender wage gap does not exist, even though it clearly does. Another reason why this is important is because many people argue that the gender wage gap exists because women have lesser-paying jobs, when a lot of the time it happens between men and women working the same job. Many people do not realize what the gender pay gap actually is, and they form an opinion of it before they know what it really is.

The gender pay gap is the difference in pay earned by men and the pay earned by women.( Pay Equity Commission, 2012). There are various ways in measuring the pay gap between genders, such as full- time or full- year wage. Statistics Canada data ( 2012) displayed that the gender pay gap in Ontario was 26% for full- time and full- year employments, which means for every C$1 earned by a man, a woman earned 74 cents( Pay Equity Commission,2012).The pay gap has been narrowing slowly over time compared to the how it was in 1987, which was 36%. However the gender wage gap is still a problem that exists in the society. I will discuss about the feminist theory and how it can be interpreted in the gender pay gap of our society, especially in regards to celebrities.

The gender pay gap is the difference between male and female earnings averaged in percentages. This difference in pay due to gender seems like it would be an obsolete practice in the twenty-first century, but it is real and is affecting millions of women and households in the country. In 2014, women working full time in the United States were paid 79 percent on average of what men were being paid, which is a gap of approximately 21 percent. This means that in the United States, females earned 94 cents on average to every dollar earned by males. According to one study by the Department of Labor’s Chief Economist, a typical 25-year-old woman working full time would earn $5,000 less over the course of her working career than a typical 25-year old man working in the same career. The reason why this pay gap exists does expand into other factors such as education, experience, the work being performed, qualifications, age, and ethnicity which are taken into account. The studies being conducted on the pay gap has economists verifying that discrimination is the best overall explanation and factor of the difference in pay between males and females.

Finally, the pay gap is simply the obvious discrepancies between the pay of men and the pay of women, for the same job in many cases. All of these theories have explanations for the gap that seem logical.

The gender pay gap is defined as a discrepancy “in the average level of wages, salaries,

The pay gap between genders exhibits sexism in America yet some researchers are in denial. Warren Farrell, expert on gender issues within legislation and former board member of National Organization for Women, claims otherwise. In his book Why Men Earn More, he attributes difference in wages to females choosing human resources jobs, which pay less, and not choosing harsher jobs that pay more (Farrell). His overall point is that men sacrifice more thus companies pay more for those sacrifices. His argument only compares the genders when different job requirements alter wages, but does not mention wages of identical jobs.

As Claudia Goldin, a professor of economics at Harvard University who has spent years researching the gender gap states, “By comparing the 469 occupations in the US Census, she found that women disproportionately holding certain jobs only accounted for about 25% of the difference in earnings between men and women. Factors within each occupation overwhelmingly accounted for differences in pay.” In her findings she found out that only 25% of the jobs do not have equal pay because of the type of work women are doing. This means that even with men and women having the same jobs, that the women will still get paid less than the men do. Another Economists Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn found, “Differences in occupation and industry explain about 49 percent of the wage gap, but 41 percent of the wage gap is not explained by differences in educational attainment, experience, demographic characteristics, job type, or union status” (Stevenson).This is just another statement backing up that the gender pay gap is not happening, just because women take lower paying jobs than men. It says that even if women do the exact same job as men, women still will get paid less than men do

There has been a major development in women’s equal rights since the Equality Act 2010 was introduced that includes gender equality as one of the strands which states people under this act cannot discriminate or harass and victimise another individual( Ref). The gender pay gap between men and women has been on debate for many years. This essay will examine whether or not in this modern day society their still remain gender inequalities through the use of relevant theories this essay is determined to establish whether these inequalities still exist in employment by exploring social, biological and cultural explanations and differences between men and women. Why women are more likely to be discriminated and oppressed and how I can use this awareness to challenge and address gender inequalities in employment.

The gender pay gap is generally measured as the variance between men and women’s average weekly pay equivalent of full-time earnings, expressed as a percentage of men’s earnings (WGEA, 2017b). Unequal pay, where women and men do the same work and are paid at differing rates, based on

The economic issue with the gender pay gap has been a concern for quite some time. Many people say that men are paid more money, or have higher salaries than women; however, there are also people who believe otherwise. Some argue that maternity leave or education level is a reason why women seem to be paid less than men, and others argue that there is a bigger issue such as race and age. The following information will address both viewpoints on the gender pay gap and its issues within the economy, as well as history of women in the workforce.

A further perspective is presented by Paula England. In her book, Comparable Worth: Theories and Evidence, England acknowledges and agrees with neoclassical economists that all sorts of discrimination will eventually erode in competitive markets however, due to the considerable length of time required to achieve it, Paula suggests government action is necessary. In achieving pay equity England advocates a policy in which employers use a system job evaluation comparing those typically held by men and others typically held by women within boundaries based off job similarities. She addresses a critique made by opponents of pay equity that suggest the real problem is occupational segregation, and that government should be directing policies to ensure women have access to higher-paying (typically male) jobs. England challenges this critique from both economic and sociological views where she believes women should not have to change jobs to qualify for wages uncontaminated by gender bias. This goes against Milton’s view of working your way up from the bottom, as female dominated roles pay less of those dominated by males suggesting you’d need to change industries in order to work your way up to achieve higher wages. Similar to Novitz and Jaber, England is a strong advocate for government intervention in achieving pay equity for women; she believes policies surrounding job evaluation should be used to assess which jobs are deemed comparable opposed to simply require government

What’s happening here is not discrimination in the labor market, but differences in the choices men and women make about investing in their knowledge, their education, their skills, and their job experiences that lead to them getting paid different salaries. Human capital is also another factor that people do not think about. By human capital, I mean the knowledge, the skills, the education, and the job experience that people have. And it is often argued that people get paid by their human capital. It turns out that men and women invest very differently in their human capital, and we can see that in a couple different ways. First of which is educational choices. For example, men tend to go into careers having to do with business or mathematics while women tend to go into social sciences, psychology, and nursing. So, where men are making higher salaries as professors or businessmen, women end up in jobs where their salaries are lower. So even though they may have the same years of schooling, the choices they’ve made about their majors lead them to working in different areas and getting paid differently. Secondly, men and women have different expectations about work. For example, if women expect down the road to take time off to raise children, they’ll make different choices today about what kinds of skills they acquire than if they imagine they’ll be working full time for the rest of their lives.

It is important to address the systemic inequalities of the gender pay gap. To do this, this essay will use Bacchi (2006) approach to analyse the text “Speech to HRINZ: The reasons for the Gender Pay Gap” by MP Paula Bennett. This essay will illustrate the theoretical perspective of liberal feminism to show the understanding of the problem, and the solutions of the gender pay gap. This essay will also look at two other theoretical perspectives, social democratic, and anti-racism and discuss their viewpoints and solutions towards the problem.

Throughout the history women have not received the same treatment as men in terms of education, status and profession, in fact one of the issues that still exist is the gender pay gap, which is a social problem that still exists not only across the UK, but also across the world. The main issues are that women are equally trained and educated as men but in general women’s salaries in some situations are usually lower.

In conclusion it has been proven that inequality still exists within companies. If women want to be paid based off their skills and not their gender, they need to become aware of the fact that this problem is still around and fight to get rid of it. Carol Hymowitz’s article reflects on the need to make a change in businesses around the world to offer diversity and equality. The change has to start with women coming together and taking a stand against discrimination. With constant change and growth within our country, there is no reason