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The And Gender Pay Gap

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Introduction
Family is one of the oldest institutions in human history with a universal and basic role in all societies, and studying the structure of family in different cultures will help us further understand its functions and effects on society. During the 20th century, the common family type in America was the “nuclear family”, two married heterosexual people living with their children (Coontz, 2006). Due to many influential changes, the concept of family has been redefined and it now includes a variety of living arrangements. Feminism has been one of the successful social movements, and has promoted alternative types of the American family. The movement has different priorities in each society, and in the United States one of the issues is the “gender pay gap”. Gender pay gap is defined as the average difference between men’s and women’s aggregate hourly earnings (European Commission, 2014). According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2014 the median weekly earnings for workers with at least a bachelor’s degree was $336 lower in women than men, and for workers with advanced degrees was $445 lower in women than men (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2015). This average difference of $17,000 to $24,000 a year is one of the contributors to the “gender pay gap” issue. The importance of financial security is a well-known fact that women in America began embracing it after World War II; many women decided to postpone marriage in order to focus on their education and career

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