Good Job Harvey

Different reasons are given in order to explain the gender wage gap. Some of reasons include: Women work for a shorter collective time in order to give birth and raise their families. Women’s work has less value than that of their male counterparts. The sexual division of labor, which assigns tasks to individuals on the basis of gender, creates blue and pink collar work and, thus, the devaluing of women’s labor. Aside from these valid points, the pay gap cannot be explained away. Women’s professions continue to be associated with smaller wages than men’s professions. Teaching, for example, is a female-dominated

In American society today there is an imbalance in the gender income gap between men and women in the work force. Many factors such as discrimination, productivity, educational background and disproportional hours worked contribute to this ongoing challenge. While many are skeptical, others remain to have strong beliefs that women and men are treated equally. In most professions according to Glynn “women only earn seventy seven cents for every dollar earned by men” (2014). Although, the seventy seven cents figure does not accurately reflect gender discrimination, it does capture some discrimination,

The National Bureau of Economic Research points to labor market discrimination and overall trends in wage structure to explain why the wage gap exists. Discrimination in the labor market may lower women’s incentives to invest in their qualifications. The second factor of trends in wage structure refers to the terms the market sets for various skills or for employment in particular occupations or industries (Blau & Kahn, 2001). Other factors contributing to the wage gap have since been considerably ameliorated, factors including gender gaps in education, skills, experience, as well as occupational segregation and career breaks (Kulow, 2013). According to Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations from the stimulus material, “The wages of labor in different employments vary according to the probability or improbability of success in them.” He then brings up an example of how mechanic jobs, such as carpentry and masonry, have almost certain success, meanwhile, success is very uncertain in the liberal professions. In a study done by the United States Department of Labor, the most common jobs for women consist of education administrators, teacher assistants, social workers, and secretaries- all the “liberal” professions. For men, their most common jobs include managers, carpenters, and laborers. The data, supported by Smith’s findings, prove that men do earn more than women, creating a gap in wages.

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.

The gender wage gap has been a nationwide problem since women were able to enter the workforce. Women have begun to speak out more about the issue and evaluate what they can do to change the industries and how they personally present themselves to help this change. Currently there is a wide range of opinions on this issue, with some saying it does not exist while others think it will ruin the economy if not fixed immediately. This makes it more difficult to address the problem and predict how it will be in the future; however, all sides of the spectrum are becoming more aware of what the gender wage gap means and what they can do to change it. This paper will analyze the different stances on the extent of this social issue as well as the current practices being used to increase knowledge and equalize pay for all.

April 8 is “Equal Pay Day,” which is an event where the main purpose is to raise awareness in regards to the social problem of the gender wage gap. The president makes his announcement that women still earn only about 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. There are people advocating left and right for women to take a stand and sue their employers for wage discrimination or make demands they want the government to fulfill. The question becomes whether or not what everyone is fighting for is actually true and worth fighting for. Authors Sarah Glynn, Kay Hymowitz, Mark Perry, and Andrew Biggs present a different idea. They all showcase in their articles the underlying factors in the gender wage gap such as college major, career choice, hours worked, job experience, and family circumstances. Discrimination cannot be ruled out completely, but the “77 cent” figure reflects gender differences based on the personal choices that people make about their careers, which results in the gender wage gap we have today. Society has been pointing the finger at discrimination for so long, but today we need to take a second look and come to the conclusion that there could be multiple reasons for the pay gap. This social problem is too complex to focus on only one particular reason.

A majority of women across the world are highly accountable for home duties, and child rearing, while men on the other hand are bound for working in higher paid salary jobs. As of a result of this, inequality amongst genders has turned into a controversy in the workplace. And due to this gender inequality, women have been led to poorly paid gender typed positions. The gender pay gap negatively impacts individuals and some elements that play a major role in this issue are: work experience, independent skills, specific length of time at a company, and the level of education the person has obtained. However, the

In the article "Occupational Hazard? The Future of The Gender Pay Gap" by Richard V. Reeves and Nathan Joo, the authors illustrates research study of income dynamics by Francine Blay and Lawrence Kahn, showing that the gender pay gap can be explained by observable differences between men and women in the occupation and the industries they work in rather than straightforward discrimination. Occupation plays a crucial role that affect women's wage. To go further, the authors claim that sexism is a reason why women are in lower paying occupations. They first present that education is not the reason because women now are outpacing men on the educational front. Then they keep going by presenting the social pattern that certain occupations and industries are seen as "men's jobs" or "women's jobs" which partitioned even the most educated women into lower paying field like nursing. The larger problem is both men and women tend to select occupational fields that fit gender stereotypes rathet than their own individual interests. Study shows that young women with interests that point to business career still plan in health sciences. And men with a range of interests that would suggest a good match for a education career would still choose engineering as their jobs. It suggests that gender stereotypes about jobs can result in a mismatch between interests and

The discrepancy of the wage gap grows substantially for more elite jobs. Males and females who have the same education and experience who go into higher paying jobs, such as doctors and lawyers, the female counterpart earns significantly less than males. This quote shows just how unjust the wage gap is that for the same amount of work, and the same education and education, males are still on average paid more. The higher paying jobs that require much higher education are not as forgiving to allow females to take a lot of time off work to have children. The females are making the wage gap by taking fewer hours to be a mother (Perry, Mark J., and Andrew G. Biggs). However, statistics say otherwise. Other statistics show to prove that women are not being paid significantly less in more elite jobs because a lot take time off to start a family, women are in general paid less per hour than men.This wage discrepancy is just dramaticized in elite jobs. Females are not paid less for the hours they take off, since comparing the hours between males and females, women are paid less on average per hour than

Now a day we hear a lot about the wage gap between men and women. President of The United States, in the state of the Union, stated that “Women earn much less than men for doing the same amount of the work”. Based on some statistic survey women makes seventy-seven cents on the dollar. The pay gap means women loses about $10,000 in median earning a year [4], if you consider career long-view the gap obstructs wealth building. This is one major concern in today's competitive world, in 2014 Republican National Committee argued that “The difference isn’t because of their genders; it’s because of their jobs.” Where research shows that gender wage gap is real and still exist The question that arises is why there is a wage gap between men and women? The answer to that question is women are more likely to take a break from their careers to take care of their family. This kind of disruption can have an impact on long-term earning.

The consequances show women could be embraced the idea of take a backseat in workforce. In either table, it can be assumed that if women have higher degree or higher position, their earnings are not as higher as men’s. The pay gap

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).

The two important issue that I could related to from what I learn in class and what I have learn by reading this article is the working conditions and the personal characteristics. One thing that I learn in class that the relationship between wages and the characteristics of different jobs have different characteristics that my provide utility or disutility. So what this mean is that depending on the person wags is based on what you might need that could make you happy or fit your personal life, especially for the females.. So females would take a less paying job just because she have another job already and that is taking care of her family and household. Another issue I learn from class and this article is that women are less experience in the work force. In the article it said “With respect to job experience, the difference in coefficients is not surprising since women in the sample had substantially less labor market experience.” This could be true because men start working at 16 back in the day while they women just stay home and do house chores all day long. This is one of the reason why there is a wage different. I could understand why he talk about working conditions, but what I learn in class about human capital and discrimination and how it have an effect on women in the labor force. Knowing that women don’t put the time to invest in their self so they could get a higher wage. They also know that the firms won’t invest in the women so that they could only pay them a low wage and give the men the higher wage. I feel like if he had talk about human capital in his paper we could see the whole picture in the difference in

The Influence of Social Values and Children Socialization on Occupational Gender Segregation and Wage Disparity by Behrooz Kalantani is an attempt to cause reflection into how society’s ideas on the mold of activities that the genders should fit into and how these ideologies have made their way into the labor force. Using data taken both high and low paying jobs surveys from findings done by the U.S Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau, the author attempts to verify that gender segregation is a reality reflected in the ongoing issue of wage disparity by showing how women who hold equal positions to men are significantly underpaid in comparison to their male counterparts. In this piece, the author argues that wage disparity is a cause of economic stagnation on the basis that, wage disparity is one of the causes of insufficient income into the home.

In his book, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs - The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s, Arne Kalleberg, Ph.D. (2011) posits that there are five general characteristics that make up a good job (although not all five must be present and the absence of a characteristic doesn’t necessarily make the job bad): 1) high wages and opportunities for advancement and/or raises in pay over time, 2) satisfactory perks and benefits like health insurance, 401k, etc., 3) at least occasional independence and control over what an individual’s job entails, 4) freedom to have input and some flexibility when it comes to one’s schedule and employment terms, and 5) to have a voice when it comes to the termination of an individual’s position (9). Since these qualities are all very general, I can say that I agree because the less tangible desires (e.g. job satisfaction, work-life balance, personal reward, social status, etc.) that make a good job