Gender Pay Gap Essay

The gender pay gap is the difference between male and female earnings averaged in percentages. This difference in pay due to gender seems like it would be an obsolete practice in the twenty-first century, but it is real and is affecting millions of women and households in the country. In 2014, women working full time in the United States were paid 79 percent on average of what men were being paid, which is a gap of approximately 21 percent. This means that in the United States, females earned 94 cents on average to every dollar earned by males. According to one study by the Department of Labor’s Chief Economist, a typical 25-year-old woman working full time would earn $5,000 less over the course of her working career than a typical 25-year old man working in the same career. The reason why this pay gap exists does expand into other factors such as education, experience, the work being performed, qualifications, age, and ethnicity which are taken into account. The studies being conducted on the pay gap has economists verifying that discrimination is the best overall explanation and factor of the difference in pay between males and females.

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).

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

There are nearly as many women as there are men working, yet, as it was discovered in 2011, on average, a woman will only earn seventy-seven cents for every dollar that a man earns. Women owned businesses make up for over a

Though the number of working women rose considerably in the last couple of years, but women are still much underpaid then their male counterparts. The United Nations recently published that for every dollar earned by men, women earned 70-90 cents globally. Statistics Canada also found that women workers in Canada earn an average of 66.7 cents for every dollar a man earns (Amber). Over the past couple of years, the gap has been documented to be increasing. In 2009, women use to earn 74.4 cents for every dollar a man earned, which reduced to 72-73.6 cents in 2011 (Evans). The American Association of University Women released a study that showed even when men and women attend the same kind of college, pick the same major and accept the same kind of job, on average, the woman earns 82 cents to every dollar that a man earns (Coleman). There is not even a single country where the average wages of women are more than men. This was proven by a study on the ratio of female to male earnings in European and non-European countries, conducted by the United Nation Statistics Division. It was found that the reason for these gender inequalities were associated with traditions and stereotypes which influence the education, professions and career paths women and men choose, and “often lead to part-time work and career breaks, mainly for women” (“The World’s”).

Women in the US typically get paid only 80 percent of what men get paid. According to Kevin Miller’s article, “The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,”, “ in 2016, women working

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

The gender wage gap issue has been around since the old days. Now, it has been reported that the gender wage gap has been widening among the young, fresh and newly graduated educated students.

Studies done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest that women make about seventy eight cents to the man’s dollar. They note that this ratio does not take into account the different professions

By economic sector, in the financial and insurance activities, the gender pay gap was higher than all other business sectors. For instance, in Estonia and Czech Republic, the gender pay gap stood at 44.9% and 44.8% respectively, which represented the highest gap in the European Union. The lowest gap was in Slovenia at 20.6%, which was still higher that then the overall EU average. In the Business economy, the highest gender pay gap was in Estonia at 28.9% and lowest in

In the United States women make up almost half of the workforce. Women earn more college and graduate degrees than men do, but on average women will earn less than men do. According to the Institute for Women's Policy Research if progress continues at the current rate it will take 44 years of until the year 2059 for equal pay between men and women. Their research shows that in almost every occupation women earn less than men.

According to Pay-Scale women make seventy-six cent for every dollar a man makes, which means women in the work force would have to work twice as hard or twice as long to get somewhere close to equal pay. Men normally have higher starting pay than women, including the promotions which makes salary by gender one sided having the men walking away with majority compared to women salaries in all traditional male jobs but there’s a shift in the amount of men in more traditional female jobs.

There are women that work more hours then their male counterparts and women still make less in salary.

Women, on average, have earned less than men in every occupation in countries with this pay gap. A group known as the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report has begun giving countries scores, indicating how much each country has worked towards closing it’s gender pay gap. A score of 1 shows full equality, while anything higher indicates little to no growth towards closing the pay gap. Although some countries have wider gaps, France is known to be the second worst country in the world for the pay gap. Although many people may disagree due to France’s positive perception of gender equality, research has proven that occupational pay between males and females in France is not equivalent at all. To put people’s positive beliefs about France’s pay gap to rest, Edsor explains that “France scored 17th best in the world for