urpose: The purpose is to highlight the gender wage gap and focus on the discrimination against working women
Thesis: I intend to assert that women deserve to be paid as much as men for the same job by the same employer. Introduction
For the same employer and for the same job in the US, on an average, women get 79 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. This indeed is an alarming figure noting that women have come a long way in attaining education at par with men and are extremely competitive in every field they are working in. It is to be noted that 79.6 cents are calculated on an average basis. The actual figures for each different field of work are different and at least in one category, women get paid no more than 67 cents for every dollar paid for an equivalent job to men. I have researched relevant data and material and am convinced beyond doubts that it is true that gender gap exists and it is time to do away with it. Not only the percentage of women in low in many job categories, their wages as compared to men doing the same job are lower. An example is of their percentage share of jobs is 4% in the natural resources, construction, and maintenance jobs category and as noted earlier, and I have verified it from credible sources that their wages in this category stand at 67 c as compared to a dollar paid to men. I have cross checked these figures
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
First of all, the gender pay is a real problem in the world, despite what many think. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the gender pay gap is “the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for doing the same work”. This is important because many people think that the gender wage gap does not exist, even though it clearly does. Another reason why this is important is because many people argue that the gender wage gap exists because women have lesser-paying jobs, when a lot of the time it happens between men and women working the same job. Many people do not realize what the gender pay gap actually is, and they form an opinion of it before they know what it really is.
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.
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).
The extensive studies conducted over the past 50 years on gender based wage gap show that even though the gap has narrowed over the years, it still irrefutably exists. The laws such as The Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibit gender based wage discrimination, and The Civil Rights Act, helped reduce the wage gap over the years but did not help eradicate it. Numerous studies and scholarly research continue to show the differences in the earnings of men and women, for equal work. Figure 1 shows the wage discrimination from the 1960s to the year 2015.
Women employees make less than men in the same job position. “It is an absolute scandal that American women continue to earn just $0.77 for every dollar men earn.” (Sen. Mikulski) There should not be a gender pay gap. Workers should be given salaries based on their work ethics, degrees, and academic credentials.
The gender wage gap has been a substantial subject that has had numerous studies done, that included extensive debates and commentary for the past three centuries. In fact, the gender wage gap predominantly affects women. For example, in 2003 people reported that women make eighty cents for every dollar men make(Gender Pay 8). For one thing, women should not be getting paid less for doing the same job as men. The individual hired at the same time as another individual should receive the same starting pay until it is shown they deserve more pay than they are receiving. If the wage gap continues to grow at the rate it has been, it will be another fifty years before women make the same as men (Discrimination 1). The workforce has grown a considerable
In 2013, full-time female employee 's made only seventy-eight cents of every dollar earned by men, which means a wage gap of twenty-two percent. Women are nearly half of the labor pool and are equal if not main, jobholder 's in four out of ten households. Not to mention, women receive more college and graduate degrees than men. Women still coninue to bring in less than men. On average, women earn less than men in basically every profession that there is adequate income data for both women and men to estimate an earnings percentage (IWPR, 2014).
Throughout history females have often times not been treated fairly compared to their male counterparts. The gender wage gap has been a real and prevalent thing in our society. Even in the present, women are inclined to get lower salaries than men throughout the world, and most importantly the United States where the constitution says “all men are created equal.” All salaries are on a weekly basis and percentages are cents a woman earns per dollar a man earns. Although, there is much we can do as individuals to stop discrimination in the work force. The United States’ wage gap is caused by discrimination against women, who have less opportunities for higher paying jobs, and in order to eradicate this issue in our country and worldwide, women need to be treated impartially in the workforce.
For every dollar that a man make a woman only gets paid seventy-seven cents. They are multiple reasons for this gap in pay. One being that they are different types of jobs that are targeted to a specific gender group. And a “man’s job” will have a higher pay that let’s say a “woman’s job”. Another reason is that people assert importance to one’s decisions in life. For instance, women are pushed to have children and raising them not to have a job. There for women will not get paid as much because they are expected to have children and then the father, or male-figure, is the main source of income for the family. The final reason for the gender disparity in the United Sates is the gender inequality that women suffer because of discrimination. Women are constantly faced with discrimination. Some companies just pay women less because they can and they won’t be called out or punished because of it. This companies are making more money from the lessen women wages. In conclusion, the gender disparity in pay in the United States is above average compared to other places in the world, but it still has a long way to go till it reaches gender equality in pay. (Macionis, 2014, pp
The gender pay gap has always been an issue concerning the work force and those apart of it. Men have always made more money than women no matter the occupation, and pay discrimination needs to be stopped. It 's even been documented that women are more active and educated in labor force but still receive 78 cents for every dollar a man makes. The pay gap is affecting all women and impacting those of all races, ethnic groups, ages, education levels, and is a problem in every state. A change needs to be made in order for the pay gap to shrink because this is not showing a sense of everyone being equal.
Recent studies have shown that for every dollar men earn, for the same work, women only earn 88 cents. This may not seem like much of a difference, but over time it adds up. Every year women make around $10,000 less than men. Over the course of a woman’s career, this becomes a difference of thousands of dollars. This difference has an immense effect on not just women, but men too. There needs to be equal pay for equal work because it could help boost the economy, support retirement plans for women, and make traditional women’s work valued in society.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation ever since 1979 the equality gap in pay had gone up, in 2010 women now earned 81% of what male employees earned. That later changed the wage gap opened, woman pay dropped by 46.7 in 2011 and it is not expected go to up until later than 2018. It is an injustice that men get payed more than women when they both have same jobs and same tasks, in some jobs women do a better job at what they do than men, but they don 't notice that.
There is a large amount of valid concrete evidence to prove the existence of the drastic wage gap between men and women in the workplace. A recent study completed by the Center for American progress concluded that “women [are] still earning 78 percent of what men make. This means that though women are the primary, sole, or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of families, they continue to earn, on average, 22 percent less than