Gender Issues Faced By Women Union Membership Essay

The wage gap is a serious problem that has consequences for women in America, our two parent families and our single mom households. The government tries to reduce the wage gap between men and women’s earnings and tries to make sure that women’s talents are properly used and rewarded. A lot has been done to relive the wage gap in the past fifty years, but it still is not enough. Women can do things on their own to help close the wage gap. They can get a non-traditional job or they can join a union. Women need to find out a company’s policy and discuss their salaries. The wage gap is a problem American women need to address, not wait on the government to fix it for us.

Equal pay is a problem on a global scale. Over 145 countries have a documented pay wage gap (Werft). One would hope the United States would have the smallest wage gap, but in 2016, the United States was in only 45th place in the smallest wage gap (“Rankings”). In fact, most women in the United States only make $0.77 compared to a whole dollar they should earn. The state with the worst wage gap is Louisiana, with only, on average $0.69 for every man’s dollar (“Rankings”). One in three of the 15.2 million families headed by women have fallen below the poverty line, leaving their children to suffer in poverty

Simultaneously, the gender pay gap has financial effects not just on the women, yet their families too. Studies have shown that American families with children count on a women’s earnings as a massive part of their family’s income, and many are the head of the household. Data demonstrates that “seventy percent of mothers with children under 18 participate in the labor force, with over 75 percent employed full-time. Mothers are the primary or sole earners for 40 percent of households with children under 18 today, compared with 11 percent in 1960. Women’s participation in the U.S. labor force has climbed since WWII: from 32.7 percent in 1948 to 56.8 percent in 2016” (Dewolf). Now women make up more than half of the U.S. workforce, the gap in earning deciphers to $7968 per year in median earnings for a high school graduate, $11,616 for a college graduate, and $19,360 for a professional school graduate. By and large, this gap effects hundreds of millions of women and their families, and lag them back hundreds of thousands of dollars throughout their life.

Due to our ever changing culture and diversity, the United States has become commonly referred to as the “melting pot.” Every day this country is becoming more and more diverse and acceptant of other cultures. This is becoming more and more prominent in the workforce as well. Not only are people from all around the globe able find work in the United States, but women are also becoming more dominant in the workforce. Although there is still a lot of speculation as to whether or not women and men are getting equal treatment and pay, many women today are finding themselves suffering from little to no

When you think about women in the work field today, what do you see? A successful lawyer, a doctor, perhaps. That’s true. In fact, there have been more females holding high employment positions in the late 20th and 21st century than ever before. According to Donald M. Fisk in “Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003”, 60% of working-age women worked in the labor force in 1999. That’s 41% more than that of 1900, where only 19% of women worked in the labor force. Among these women, a vast majority have seen their salaries sky-rocket in the past two decades, almost surpassing those of male workers. However, it is not always this way.

For the first time in history women had surpassed men in the paid labor force. Yet, instead of provoking an equality among the sexes, the figures play no statistical significance, as women still try to bridge the gap between their inequality among their male counterparts. One apparent setback for women in the workplace is their unequal payment, “Women workers are still paid less than men, currently about-three quarters of mens income if they work full time and year round”(Institute for Womens’s Policy Research, 2010). Although there women are beginning to integrate into vastly male populated jobs throughout the labor force “… women in America today earn 78 cents to a man’s dollar, according to the U.S Census Bureau, and have struggled for decades to achieve pay for equal work” (Riley 2). Not only has this pay gap significantly effected the nature of women throughout the county, it has also violated the bill that Congress passed called the Equal Pay Act of 1963. The Equal Pay Act was signed in order to establish a more sound and equal treatment among the sexes. It noted that an employer was unable to discriminate employees on grounds of gender, yet as figures denote today, this bill seems to not possess enough jurisdiction over the wage gap. The wage gap has contributed to various problems within the United States, especially among single mothers who do not have a supporting male figure within their household.

Since the late 19th century, women have been struggling with the issue of not receiving the same amount of pay as men. The gender wage gap was not seen as a major issue until the 1960s, however, and unfortunately, it is still a major issue in our world today. (cite source). In the early 1900’s, World War I caused many men to leave their families behind to fight for their country. As a result of this, women had to take the responsibility of the male roles in the workforce. Women were expected to do the same jobs as men did before they were deployed, but were paid less to do so (cite source). This problem still exists in our world today. In 2011, it was proven that the weekly earnings for a female full-time worker is $684, compared

But since 2000, progress has all but flatlined. A big underlying factor is the slowdown in women’s wage growth. That’s what helped propel the closure of the gap in earlier decades, but women have seen a standstill in wage growth since about 2001, as has most of the country.Women make less than men, on average, for a number of reasons. About 10 percent of it is thanks to different work experience, often because women are much more likely to take breaks from work to care for family members. The drop of women in the labor force over the last decade can be tied to the country’s lack of paid family leave, child care assistance, and support for flexible schedules.Some of it is also due to the fact that women end up working in areas that tend to pay less. But that doesn’t mean they can escape the gap by choosing different paths. They make less in virtually every industry and every job. And while getting more education boosts earnings, women make less than men with the same educational credentials at every level and even make less than their former male classmates when they graduate from top-tier universities. Some of that difference may be due to different majors or grades, but when salaries in the first year after graduation are compared while taking the college, major, grades, and other factors into account, women still experience a significant wage gap.Discrimination therefore plays a role. Economists consistently find a portion of the gap that can’t be explained by a variety of other factors. Studies have found that people of both genders are inclined to give men more money, especially if the woman is a mother. Meanwhile, women’s job performance is continuously underrated compared to men’s. Therefore in the workforce are discriminated

A single woman, 2 kids under the age of 18, a high stress work environment, and she still isn’t paid an equal amount as a man with the same job. Millions of women from across the United States have been fighting for equality since the dawn of time. and the results so far have not been outstanding. “If the Gap Were Closed, California Women Could Afford Food for More Than One Year, Four More Months of Mortgage and Utilities, or More Than Six Additional Months of Rent Annually” (California). The ever present pay gap in America is degrading to women in the workforce and should be closed because the gap doesn’t affect just white, single women; it affects all ethnicities, working mothers, and households across the country, although many people will

In the United States today, women are far more likely than men to have lived below the poverty line at some point in their lives. One in seven women are living in poverty today, with the number hovering right around 14.7% compared to 10.9% of men (NWLC, 2015). It is undeniable that that is a serious wage gap in the United States with women making cents to every dollar that a man makes for the same work, and on top of that women are often working lower paying “pink-collar” jobs in the first place; for women of color, wages are even lower. Compound these problems with factors such as domestic violence, children, and lack of healthcare and you can begin to see how dire of a situation women living below the poverty line find themselves in. As an

The wage gap is a major issue that is constantly brought up in the work place. Many people use the term “wage gap” to state how gender can affect someone’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 many 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 to support the people they need too and not have to rely on a male’s income solely. Stays at home dads are being more popular as well. Gender and race should not be a factor in the amount of money someone can make, though the amount of schooling and hours put into the job should be the primary consideration when it comes to determining income.

Income inequality is still a problem as of 2015 especially for women and racial minorities. Studies show there is a wage gap among different genders, race, and ethnicity. In the United States around the 1960’s, the median full-time working woman only earned 60% of what the median full-time working man earned, and in 2009, 77% of what was earned (Hegewisch, Williams, and Henderson 2011). Women and mothers suffer a great deal in the work force. Three factors that contribute to the wage gap is the motherhood penalty, discrimination in the workplace, and sexual orientation.

Pay equity, another form of discrimination, is a concern throughout America. On average, women continue to earn much less than men earn (while performing the same work). There are two primary reasons for this travesty: Women anticipate shorter and more sporadic work lives, and women, on average, have less work experience than men (Kim). Women should receive equal pay for equal work despite any circumstances. In 2015, women earned a mind-boggling seventy-nine cents for every dollar that a man earned. This statistic demonstrated that there is a gender wage gap of almost twenty percent. Moreover, women must work until April 12th of a given year to earn what men earned in the previous year. To make matters worse, equal pay day for minority women

CUPE has developed different workshops available to women on a wide range of topics to assist with increasing activeness in unions. (CUPE, 2007, p.9) There were intended to give women the skills and education needed to obtain leadership positions. Ultimately, without the education and leadership positions, women cannot win votes in an election, as women do not have the merit to persuade members of the union to vote in their favour (CUPE, 2007). Thus, it becomes a vicious cycle, where men will continue to be re-elected due to their past experiences and wealth of knowledge they bring to the table. Despite having access to these classes, women find it difficult to put the effort into attending courses due to a variety of reasons such as: the double day which includes family responsibility, etc. (CUPE, 2007,

Women have made extraordinary strides toward workplace equality in the last century. The labor-market participation rate for women 25 to 44 years of age - the average child bearing years - rose from less than 20% to more than 75% between 1900 and 1999 (Velasquez, 1.) Author Andrea Lunsford writes about the simple concept of “comparable worth” saying that concept of workers with “comparable skills, education and experience be paid equal amounts” should be a fairly simple policy to institute. (Lunsford, 617) But as many women know first hand, this practice can be fairly difficult to enforce. Many companies can even seem downright opposed to it. Women in the workplace have it hard enough; they are under more