Women 's Impact On Women

This research also shows that when women take these leaves of absences, it will impact their career by decreasing their earnings in the long run (Patten, 2015). This is seen as an indirect form of discrimination in the workplace because even though an employer is not neglecting a woman for simply being a woman, they still are the ones who are expected to leave their occupation in order to care for their family and that creates much more significant long-term impacts on their careers than on a man’s career. This is quite unfortunate because as stated earlier, women are becoming a much larger force in high-paying jobs that are typically overrun and controlled by men, for instance, professional and managerial positions. However, research still shows that women

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.

As more women in the United States join the workforce, policy needs to reflect and benefit these working mothers. This creates a balancing act between gender equality, a popular issue amongst political candidates, and paid maternity leave. America cannot expect to have one without the other.

Paid maternity leave protects families from financial stress and bombardment. Per the Washington Post in the article “Defending Paid Parental leave” on September 2, 2009, “One of the side effects of the bad economy is that good ideas that sound expensive begin getting ignored. Take paid parental leave. Making sure that parents can afford to take time off to have a baby is a good idea on a number of fronts. It protects families from the choice of financial calamity or time with a newborn.”

Since their inception in the 19th century, women’s colleges in the United States have faced significant challenges and undergone a multitude of transformations in their pursuit to educate women (Kratzok, 2010; Thelin, 2004; Turpin, 2010). In recent years, economic hardship has forced many women’s colleges to reexamine their identity and initial purpose, as rising costs and dwindling enrollments have led a majority to co-educate or close their doors entirely (Hursh & Wall, 2011; Kratzok, 2010). The fierce competition for students in today’s higher education climate has hit women’s institutions particularly hard, as once there were over three hundred women’s colleges and only about seventy presently remain (Women’s College Coalition, 2001). Though women make up the majority of undergraduate students (Turpin, 2010), the future of these small, private women’s colleges seems uncertain (Langdon & Giovengo, 2003). However, by examining their contentious historical beginnings to their evolution in the 21st century, one can determine the pivotal role women’s colleges still play in the United States higher education system.

Question: “Women received the vote based on their contribution to the war effort”. How accurate is this view that women gained the vote based solely on war work? 20 marks

Pregnancy and early child development is a fundamental aspect of human society, and is pertinent to the development of a successfully functioning community. The developmental and social progress of any civilization relies on children, as they will compose the future working population. Therefore, a mother or father’s involvement in the child’s development is of extreme importance, which is why family leave has been implemented all over the world. Family leave refers to the period of time granted to the employee to care for their newborn child. As communities evolve economically, financial stability is necessary, for what is perceived to be socially successful for a child’s development, which is why paid family leave is popular throughout the world’s nations. However, ABC News reports that “the U.S. is only one of three countries in the world that don't offer paid maternity leave” (Kim, 2015); the same is true for paternity leave. The United States government has an interesting track record dealing with family leave, but in order to analyze what the US government and advocacy groups have done to solve this issue, there first needs to be an understanding on why this issue is so difficult to resolve. The arguments that support and oppose paid family leave in the United States are equally valid, therefore causing a stalemate in the attempted policy making of legislative bodies.

Maternity leave policies have a significant impact on family roles, postpartum maternal health, and child development. According to Vahration (2009), mothers taking unpaid maternity leave are enforcing traditional gender roles within the family in order to compensate for their husband’s high earnings. Therefore, perpetuating discrimination in the work place by encouraging women, rather than men, to leave and take care of their children.

These experts claim that when women take time off to have children “they are typically giving up a salary and wage growth right at that crucial moment of their career, … This pushes that baseline salary from where future promotions will grow." (Patel, 2016). In Canada women can get up to a year off of work for their maternity/paternity leave (17 weeks of paid leave is required). This is significantly higher than other countries such as the United States, where no actual paid leave is required, but women can get up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. However, studies show that countries with higher maternity leave time also have a larger wage gap between men and women because “women are more likely than men to actually use their parental leave, and that time out of the workforce is associated with lower wages” (LIVINGSTON, 2013). This can be one of the reasons why there can be a sizable wage gap still here in Canada today. However, should a woman’s financial life suffer indefinitely just because she decides to have children? Certainly this is a problem that can and should be

The Urban Institute published a case study that promotes the creation of national paid family leave policy in the United States. In the study, it is shown that this issue has been debated countless times in the past. George H.W. Bush even vetoed an unpaid family leave act during his presidency. This displays the struggles of enacting policy relating to this issue. The lack of a national paid family leave program in the US has left working mothers with three options: “return to work immediately after childbirth, quit employment, or take unpaid leave” (Urban Institute, 2017, p.3). The issue with these options include, loss of pay, unemployment, or the lack of parental presence in a child’s early development. Moreover, although some private companies offer paid leave, less educated and lower income mother have little access to this paid leave, which exacerbates their financial instability, keeping them in a lower societal class. This study found that not only is the current system is inadequate, but it is also inequitable, which causes financial hardships across the nation. According to the study, there has even been a 32% decrease in income after childbirth. Although this is the current situation, some states have enacted a statewide paid family leave program, which displays

Recently women’s rights and women’s equality in the workplace has come back to the fore as a topic for discussion in government agencies and the United Nations. Whilst this is a very important topic, when it comes to time off from work when a new child is born, women in the US have some provision, whereas men have none.

In a still predominantly men-orientated world, male lawyers seem to resent the time that women have off for maternity leave, many complaining of what they perceive as holding the fort after a woman’s decision to become pregnant. Many women complain that on their return to the legal profession, they are expected to work at twice the pace to make up for the time off, which puts inordinate pressure on them when they are trying to develop a sensible working pattern and balance.”

In today’s society, there is often a misconception among women and men and the roles they are expected to follow through with. Although there has been advances in the way women are treated, it is unfortunately still an unbalanced dynamic in our society. From an early age, women are often persuaded, even if subconsciously, to follow a certain pathway in life. They are most often associated with staying home, keeping the house clean, cooking, baking, and raising children. Certain mediums that girls are exposed to tend to sway them towards these specific wants and aspirations. The way in which certain products are presented to little girls create an image they feel like they need to master. Men, on the other hand, are taught something completely different. They are regularly habituated with more masculine and self-reliant tasks. From an early age, they are automatically seen as people that deserve to be educated and use their smart, resourceful assets to contribute to society. They are without a doubt going to get a job and become a father and husband that provides for his family. In most situations, even if the woman has a job, men are the main “bread-winner.” Going along with this belief, the products boys are often marketed portray the idea of strength and independence. Whether it is a toy or a book, men are more often than not characterized as the heroic, more capable gender. There are many cases in which different mediums exhibit the ideas of men being the superior

Researchers have proposed a variety of explanations for systematic gender inequality in the workplace. Cultural benefits, the actions of male employees, the actions of the female employees, and the actions of the employer can contribute to intentional or unintentional gender discrimination (Ngo, Foley, Wong, & Loi, 2003). It has also been mentioned that women make less money because their work environment is generally safer than the stereotypical male work environment; childcare, cashiers, and secretary positions as opposed to firefighters, truck drivers and construction workers (Parcheta, Kaifi, & Khanfar, 2013). Perhaps the most dominant reasoning for women receiving less pay is the carrying over of biological roles into the workplace. Female employees often take time off to have a family, take care of a family, and are the primary caregiver of said family.

Access to paid leave is often identified as an issue that primarily concerns working mothers, yet paid leave is also critically important for working fathers. In a society that continues to evolve, it is even more imperative to address this unequal access with an increasing number of fathers who are serving as stay at home parents (International Labor Organization, 2014). Legislation that supports fathers having the support they need to prioritize family responsibilities can significantly increase the personal and economic well-being of their growing families (United States Department of Labor, 2015). Despite these advantages, the growing importance of paternal involvement with their newborns is not always supported in today’s society. The economic and social barriers fathers face may hinder them from taking paternity leave altogether, such as inadequate access to paid leave and outdated cultural norms about male breadwinners. According to survey data, most fathers in the United States only take one day of leave time for every month the typical mother takes (Harrington et al., 2014). This means that even in the twenty-first century, it appears to be more widely accepted for mothers to take off time from work to care for their families than fathers. Fewer than half the countries in the world provide men with access to paid leave to care for a new child, while virtually all provide paid maternity leave (ILO, 2014). Paid paternity leave and laws related to promote