The Gender Pay Gap

The gender wage gap in America is a social problem that has existed since women entered the workforce. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, for every dollar earned by a man, a woman made 78.3 cents in 2013 (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). Data from 1983 to 1998 and concluded that women workers in their prime earning years make 38% of what men make. During the 15-year period, an average prime-age working woman earned only $273,592 compared with $722,693 earned by the average working man in 1999 (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). The wage gap affects women of color in a more profound way that it does non-hispanic white women. Hispanic women are making 53%, African American women are making 64%, and Asian American women are making 87% of white men’s earnings each year (AAUW, 2013).

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.

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.

While the gender wage gap is alarming in and of itself, the racial gender wage gap is even worse. When the issue of the wage gap is discussed, the statists provided are usually for white women compared to white men. As stated earlier, for every dollar a white man makes, a white woman will make around 76 cents, and a black woman will make about 67 cents (Wilson 2017). The same article provides a table which shows that in 2015, working, married, women with children who are white make, on average, $26, compared to $23 for black women, and shockingly, only $18 for Hispanic women (Wilson 2017).

Gender pay gaps are defined as the average difference between men’s and women’s aggregate hourly earnings. One of the largest driving factors of the gender wage gap is the fact that men and women, on average, work in different industries and occupations. Women in every state experience the pay gap, but in some states it is worse than others. The pay gap affects women from all backgrounds, at all ages, and of all levels of educational achievement. In 2014, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 79 percent of what men were paid which is a gap of 21 percent. The gap has narrowed since the 1970s due to women 's progress in education and workforce participation and to men 's wages rising at a slower rate. The progress has stalled in recent years and the pay gap does not appear likely to go away on its own.

For many years, there has been a wage gap between the genders and their earnings. The wage gap, or pay gap, is the difference between a female’s overall earnings, to a male’s overall earnings. Pay gaps don’t only limit your earnings based on your gender, but as well as your race, age, and education. The gender pay gap affects women and their earnings to a great extent, leading to unfair pay. Women should be paid as equally as men because it would benefit motherhood financially, and it would benefit many women of color that have different educational experiences.

The Huffington post (n.d) notes that in 2015, and on average, women still make 78 cents to a man's dollar. A new report goes beyond that oft-quoted statistic and examines this discrepancy along racial, geographical and educational lines. The American Association of University Women's (AAUW) "The Simple Truth about the Gender Pay Gap" report breaks down the wage gap in every state, including Washington D.C., using data from 2013. The U.S. capital comes closest to pay equity, with women earning an average of 91 percent of the wages that men do. At the bottom of the list is Louisiana, where women earn just 66 percent of what men do. The report also found that women of color continue to be hit hardest by the gender wage gap. Asian-American women

The gender wage gap issue is prevalent in our society and drives many political and social discussions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states a 23% difference between the wages of men and females, and this data leads to the infamous idea that women make “77 cents for every dollar a man makes.” Many individuals interpret this by assuming that women are discriminated in the work place. Yet most, if not all, of the gender wage gap is a result of individual choice, rather than gender discrimination, and statistical analysis, personal motives/factors such as occupation, hours worked, experience, etc. show that the gender wage gap is highly inflated and misleading.

For Marriage and family in the women’s pay gap has been a big issue for the children and even for themselves and has been the issue since the beginning of when they started to take over. Even though women work more hours than an average guy does a women gets paid less for 80 cents every dollar a guy makes. As, in this article says, “Currently, among women under 30 or so

Explanations for this pay gap come far and wide and are cited in various publications within numerous fields worldwide. Most research point toward existing gender bias and discrimination. Due to workplace biases women are earning 20 percent less than men on average. Women face unfair barriers in the workplace. Reasons for the pay gap also include shifts in supply and demand for employers, unfair wage determination practices, unequal time taken away from work to care for families, and differences in work credentials such as education and experience. The best way to close the gender pay gap is to focus on correcting the biggest factors causing this

The Gender Wage Gap is defined as the different amounts of money that is paid to women and men, often for doing the same work. Women who work full time, year round earn 77 cents for every dollar that men earn. Over a year women make $11,500 less than men and throughout their life this wage gap can affect women by making them earn anywhere from $400,000-$2 million less than men do. (Miller 2008, 6) The wage gap varies for women of different races. On average African-American women are paid 60 cents and Latinas are paid 55 cents for every dollar white men make. Over a year this amounts to a loss of $21,937 for African-American women and $25,177 for Latina women. (Dishman 2015, 1) Asian American women earn the highest amount compared to other minorities at 80 cents to the dollar compared to men. (Miller 2008) Minorities and women are already two of the groups that face the most struggles, but because these women are both women and minorities, this puts this in a greater disadvantage. The Paycheck Fairness Act is an effort to address the issue of the wage gap. It’s purpose is to stop retaliation against employees who disclose wage information and closes loopholes that employers use to avoid paying women equal wages. The Paycheck Fairness act is necessary to lessen the hardships of women due to the gender wage gap, it would help decrease sex based discrimination in the workplace, and because it would help fix the issues that past acts have not been able to resolve and be

“Annual data for 2012, the latest year for which data are available, estimate that women earn 77 percent of what men do for working full-time, year-round, while weekly data put the estimate at 82.1 percent” (Glynn). As time has progressed, the wage gap has greatly increased due to gender segregation. When the median wages of both men and women have been averaged together, men have been found to have a significant advantage in their pay over women. Moreover, the wage gap between males and females can be used as a representation that expresses the difference in pay in today’s society. This pay gap can be used as an indication to measure the inequality between genders. The impact of the wage gap has been a controversial issue between men and