Gender Pay Gap

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 average woman in the United States makes approximately $82.90 for every dollar their male counterparts make. (Elsesser). While those 20 cents may seem inconsequential to you, they add up. Losing that much money all year can be the difference between someone living in poverty, and someone living a nice life. The gender pay gap is the cause of this problem. Around the world, women are losing money just because of what gender they are. The gender wage gap is a huge problem, that can only be solved by going to extreme measures, such as requiring people to release their employees wage gap and passing new laws.

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.

Seventy-seven cents to the dollar. A simple phrase used to describe the gender pay gap. Most people who use this phrase in casual conversation do not really know what this entails. It is much more than men earning more than women. The significance of this pay discrepancy becomes much more apparent when looking at the bigger picture. Over an entire lifetime of working, a woman making only 77 cents to the male dollar loses a total of $1.2 million dollars over the course of her working life (Murphy & Graff, 2005). A risk of poverty for women living with a pay gap is high. According to the European Commission, the at-risk-of-poverty rate is around 22 percent for women, compared to the 16 percent of men.

Today, the working industry has made substantial progress towards gender equality pay while adding numerous career opportunities for woman in the workforce. However, society still poses ethical concerns between women and men regarding gender pay gap and discrimination for the same job function that apparently still exist. To put it differently, women regrettably have struggled as they continue in trying to make headway in gaining the respect of the working-class industry since the mid-1900’s. In some cases, researchers state that women in the workforce will not get paid equally for the same job function because of discrimination of gender gap. According to one research study, “there is still a gender pay gap. Women continue to earn considerably less than men on average” (Blau & Kahn, 2007, p. 8). While men have the higher ground of work tenure there should be equal pay for women with the same qualifications; I will argue the concerns of gender gap pay while using the utilitarian theory, deontological theory and the objection of moral reasoning to prove the ethical theory.

The reason why I have composed this informative essay on the chosen topic gender inequality: the pay gap is because I thought it’s an important topic to be explored and it ties into economic inequality. With my revisions, I focused on clarifying certain information I put into my essay from other sources so that women could have better explanations on how this information supports the overall paper. I attempted to cover three core areas that may be contributing to the pay gap in hopes that this would guide their attention on the most critical information. I did confuse some students with where I was going with my essay and the issue at hand. Some peers assumed I was informing them on the existence of the pay gap rather than my intended

One cannot begin the discussion of gender pay gap without defining it. Simply put, gender pay gap is the inequality between men and women wages. Gender pay gap is a constant international problem, in which women are paid, on average, less than that of their male counterpart. As to if gender pay gap still exist, its exactness fluctuates depending on numerous factors such as professional status, country and regional location, gender, and age. In regards to gender, in some cases, both men and women have stated that the gap does not exist. 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 widen 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.

The gender pay gap is a problem nationwide in the United States. It is a phenomenon that affects women of all education levels, ages, and races. Although it varies in a state-by-state basis, the pay gap is prevalent in all states (Miller, 2017). The issue is also occupation-wide, meaning that nearly every occupation will have a gender gap (Miller, 2017). Statistics from The Simple Truth About the Gender Pay Gap have shown that while an increase in education help women earn more, it does not eliminate the problem all together or close the gap (Miller, 2017). As of recent statistics, women are paid approximately 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, however, the gap is worse for women of color, especially, when compared to the salary of that of white men; African American women earn 63% of the salary that white men earn, Native American women earn 58%, and the largest gap is for Latina women, who earn only 54% (Miller, 2017).

The gender pay gap in the United States forms a slightly mixed feeling. On one hand, after years of opposition to the earnings of women compared to men. There has been a large increase in women's earnings since the 1970s. The gender pay gap in the United States is measured through the female to male average yearly earnings for a full-time, year-round worker. Previously, a woman earned 77 cents for every dollar that a male gets. Since 1980, the gap has narrowed by 16.8 cents, improving from 60.2 cents to 77 cents, as stated by the Institute for Women’s Policy. The current pay gap between female and male is 82 cent for every one dollar. This growth is significant because it opposes the relative stability of the earlier incomes of a woman in the

The gender wage gap is the difference in men and women’s annual salaries and can be found in every kind of job at all times. The gap stems from prejudice against women workers, resulting in women receiving less pay than men do for the same work. As of 1999, women make up sixty percent of the workforce and are the main income provider for four of every ten families. Yet, in 2015, the median annual income for women was $40,742 and $51,212 for men. That is eighty percent of what men are earning, or a twenty percent wage gap. In the past half-century there has not been a consistent decrease in the wage gap: in 1960 women were earning sixty-four percent of men’s annual income, in 1978 they were earning fifty-nine percent, and in 2000 they were

The gender wage gap is a widespread and pressing issue. It is also a highly debated subject in the United States in which some refuse to even believe exists at all.

The gender wage gap in the U.S. has been a topic of debate in politics through most of the 21st century. In 2015, women were paid 80 percent of what men were paid (SIMPLE TRUTH). This number is considerably smaller than that of the 1960’s because of women’s progress in education and participation in the workforce (SIMPLE TRUTH). The wage gap can have adverse lifelong effects on a woman’s life. Because women are paid less than men, a woman will receive less social security, pensions, and other resources when they retire than a man would (Fischer & Hayes, 2013). There is a common stigma that women do not get paid as much as men because they do not ask for higher wages but not everything can be “explained

Considerable changes have taken place over the past two decades (WGEA, 2017c). Women have become more prominent within the workforce (WGEA, 2017c). Participation of women in the workplace has risen from 45% to 60% over the last 40 years (WGEA, 2017c, ABS, 2017a). Women’s education attainment has risen, showing a 28% increase since 1996 (ABS, 2017b; WGEA, 2017c). Despite this, earnings are not equal between male and female undergraduates (WGEA, 2017b). One suggestion is that women are choosing lower paid professions, contributing to an unequal distribution among part-time and full-time work (WGEA, 2017b).

Poverty and ill-health are intertwined (Wagstaff, 2002). Poor countries, and poorer people within countries, tend to have worse health outcomes than better-off countries and people (Wagstaff, 2002). The poor tend to die earlier, have higher levels of morbidity, malnutrition, and mortality (Wagstaff, 2002). Poor women are not only challenged by the economic factor of the gender pay gap facing the same health problems of all those in poverty, but are further disadvantaged by being a woman.

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.