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Inequality Between Men And Women

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For generations, women and men have been held to different standards when it came to the work force and in recent years, the United States has began to see a breakthrough with these barriers starting to diminish. However, pay inequality still remains prevalent. Men and women working the same jobs are not receiving the same wages and that doesn’t make sense to majority of society. As of 2013, women are only making about 78% of what men make (Hill, 2015) and into 2015 we’re still hovering around the same number. Many are confused as to why there is pay inequality between men and women in the same occupations and that’s why the question trying to be answered here is: what are the causes of gender pay inequality among the workforce in the United States and have they changed over time? Many scholars and people in society might think it hasn’t changed much, but starting with a brief history of US women in the workforce, we will see that there are very obvious upward trends even if a gap still does exist. As of 2012, women make up 52% of the labor force (Women in the Labor Force: A Databook, 2), which is a massive improvement from about 100 years ago. Starting in the late 1800s, single, young women made up majority of females in the workforce and the opposite held true for married women (Goldin, 4). The typically young and single women that made up the workforce didn’t have college degrees and the jobs they were employed in (laundresses/cleaners) did not give them a lot of

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