Women Pay Gap Essay

 “Women earn only 77 cents for every dollar men earn, with women of color at an even greater disadvantage with 64 cents on the dollar for African American women and 56 cents for Hispanic women.” — White House Statement of Administration Policy on Paycheck Fairness Act, June 4. [2]

In our constitution we are all equal, but why are we not paid equally? The gender wage gap movement will result in social change because it is bringing awareness to women in the workplace getting paid lower than her male counterpart. On the other hand, many other people may argue that the gap is not because of gender, it is because men work longer hours compared to women since they have children to take care of. I believe that this movement could improve by making people more aware of the through more examples such as the Women’s U.S.A. Soccer Team wanting more pay and equal pay.

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.

Equal pay is a problem on a global scale. Over 145 countries have a documented pay wage gap (Werft). One would hope the United States would have the smallest wage gap, but in 2016, the United States was in only 45th place in the smallest wage gap (“Rankings”). In fact, most women in the United States only make $0.77 compared to a whole dollar they should earn. The state with the worst wage gap is Louisiana, with only, on average $0.69 for every man’s dollar (“Rankings”). One in three of the 15.2 million families headed by women have fallen below the poverty line, leaving their children to suffer in poverty

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.

The pay gap stems from traditionalized views of life that have not changed for decades. A recent article by the Los Angeles Times states, “It’s discriminatory because the differences were almost certainly the result of gender bias,” The pay gap has not changed throughout time, which emphasizes the lasting effect of sexism. Gender bias is introduced very young in children, and they grow up with ideas, believing them to be true. Studies show that the need for family time “…lead women to take lower-paying jobs because they’re more likely to offer flexible [hours], while fears of discrimination might steer them away from higher-paying professions” (Lam). Women typically take off more time than men for children, and often do not receive paid leave. This causes a large problem among young and single mothers who do not have another income to support them.

The inequality of pay between a man and a woman grows when the woman's race is taken into consideration, statistically, white women earn seventy-eight cents, African-American women earn sixty-four cents and Latina women earn fifty-six cents for every dollar earned by a white man as stated on www. whitehouse.gov. This significant wage gap is not just a bunch of numbers -- it has real life consequences that affect real life women: women with growing children to feed, women of color, disabled women, aging women longing retirement, and your own

2015. There is a pay gap in America where men are paid more than women even if they have the same job and have the same qualifications. On average, a woman earns 74 cents to every man’s dollar. When someone first graduate’s college and is new to the workforce, the gap as low. The gap grows as you move up the job ladder. Only 5% of the fortune 500 companies have CEO’s that are women. Even when women advance to this level, they are still not being paid the same as their male counterparts. Minority women have an even bigger pay gap. African-American women get paid on average about 64 cents for every man’s dollar, while Hispanic women only bring home around 54 cents for every man’s dollar. There is no industry or state where women earn the same or more than

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.

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

Wage gap hurts women across the board by suppressing their income and making it way harder to balance their work and family. Every working class woman is affected by this

Although many people are now bringing up a pay gap between genders, there is something being over looked that proves there isn’t a pay gap, but something else. The Gender Income Gap is a supposed payment gap between men and women, stating that to every man’s dollar a woman only gets payed seventy cents. Statements like theses can grab people’s attention and get them to believe this without much proof of it actually existing. Most people get there information about the gap from surveys over all women and men average pay, this is not a good representation of the topic because it doesn’t go into any detail of actual jobs and difference of pay. There are many other factors that going into the pay gap that would make it into something else not necessarily a pay gap. There are several solutions for this problem most of them aren’t necessarily for equality but for the gain of one sex at the cost of the rights of another. The one I will be talking about later doesn’t need government intervention and doesn’t need for one sex to do more. This solution will come from “changes in the labor market, especially how jobs are structured and remunerated to enhance temporal flexibility.”1

Women are already paid less than men and then when you factor in race some women are paid even less. Black women even with education and experience see the greatest earnings disadvantage in comparison to white women (Browne, and Askew 2005). Research done between979 and 1998 for full-time workers, it’s reported that real wages for White and Black women increased. White women saw an increase around 16%, Black women saw only an 8% increase, and Latinas wages stagnated (Bowler, 1999). It is possible that what appears to be White women’s greater wage progress is actually due to education or skill advantage.

Since women are expected to go to work and do the house work, cook, and care for their children, they are penalized for their roles. These women who do all of it are more likely to leave the workforce for longer periods of time. An example of this would be when a child is sick, or a child needs to be picked up from school at a certain time (etc.). Not only is there a difference in the pay gap between genders, but also being a different race is a factor. Asian Americans who worked full time had the highest paying salary when compared to African American or Hispanic/Latina women in 2015. This pattern was also similar to the men in these groups. While Hispanic/Latino men and women have the lowest earnings of any group. AAUW stated, “Hispanic/Latina women are paid 87 percent of what Hispanic/Latino men are paid, while African American women are paid 88 percent of what African American men are paid. Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women are paid 84 percent of what their male peers are paid. American Indian and Alaska Native women are

With simple solutions like negotiation skills and laws, the problem can begin to be solved. As a result, men and women can work in the career they want and not worry about being discriminated against due to their gender. Gender should never be the deciding factor of what an individual earns, it should be based on their skills and how well they perform in the field they chose. It can also certainly be said that a single mother could possibly get enough money through child support and her own job, but that might not always be the case. Maybe the individual paying child support does not make much money in their job, then in turn cannot pay the single mother much money. In this situation, the extra money that a woman would lose over the course of her career would be tremendously helpful. Therefore, by having equal salaries, it would be easier for single mothers to care for their children. If the wage gap is eliminated, then salaries would not be based on gender and single mothers would be better off. This would then again point the United States in the direction of