Gender Pay Gap
Introduction
Gender pay is concerned with gender representation in different roles that pay different to the employees (Gibelman 32). The Gender gap pay is not concerned about the issue of equal pay but rather based on the jobs that pay in a way that is not expected. To find the Gender Pay Gap, we add all the compensation paid to women in ascertain jobs, and then we compare and contrast the men’s compensation in the same job group of another similar job. The outcome of this contrast is what we call the Gender Pay Gap. If a company pays the female employees lower than men for the same job, this is very wrong and unlawful (Ruggles 1797).
Women are paid less than men all over the world. In recent research by Angelov (546), it was established that out of every dollar a man gets paid, a woman gets paid only 79 cents. The increase of women joining the workforce has made many women make huge gains, but still, they get paid lesser than men. Many people assume that the gender gap between male and female is not an act of discrimination against the female gender. The disparity is contributed by many societal norms and expectations that are forced on women. The forces that lead to this disparity are mostly out of the control of women.
The Importance of this research is to identify the suffering of women in the workforce. The gender disparity in terms of payment has been noted to be hurting women by straining their wages and making it hard for them to balance between family and work. For the researchers who want to study this issue, thy should ensure they do not blame the female gender for being paid lower than their male counterparts, but instead, they should focus on how this problem came into being and how it can be taken care of.
There have been critiques of the gender gap pay, who tend to explain that the disparity is not discriminatory, but rather it is caused by different factors, which affect the pay (Harkness et al. 370). Some of the elements are the experience of the person, the educational background, and the place of work. The critics go on to state that the disparity may be caused by the individuals’ decisions on the choice of career. Pucheta et al. (471) Suggest that its true that the occupational choices cause the disparity in wages.
The decisions women make regarding their careers or occupations are shaped by societal norms and are not really in the control of women at all. The long hours of output needed in the well-paying occupations are too much for women to bear. The reason for this difficulty for women is due to the family roles that are left to women.
Many of the careers that have low wage rates are filled with women. This career has come to be known as women’s occupations, and the wages paid to them are low. This research by Gupta et al. 2038) is focused on hourly wages. Bearing in mind that women don’t work many hours in a week as compared to their many family responsibilities assigned to them. Then we can say that the hourly gender pay gap is lesser than the initial 79% that was identified earlier in the paper.
This small change allows for the comparison between male and female wages. Looking into the hourly wage disparity has enabled the researchers to have a clear understanding of the factors that shape the wage disparity in the compensation of women. The study by Angelov (548) found out that the gaps that are shaped by career were massive and went on to be noticed as the researchers progressed to control the education, experience, and other factors.
The critics of the gender wage gaps are seen to state often that the wage disparity is there because the women are focused on looking for lower-paying jobs. This view is biased as the men who work in those lower-paying professions still get paid more than the women. For example, teachers, nurses, engineers, and hairdressers. In this profession, if male employees get paid more as compared to women.
A recent study by Gibelman (22) found out that if for example, 2% of men were masons, and 2% of the women also join the masonry profession. After the other factors had been held constant, it was found that the gender wage gap would have been closed by 32%. The study went on to explain that if women were allowed to continue with their current professions, and close the gender wage gap, this would lead to a 68% gap being closed.
In another study conducted by Harkness et al. 369) it was identified that women are more equipped in terms of educational achievements.37% of women were found to have reached the college level and above while men had a percentage of 32%.conversely men were found that in every education level were paid more per hour as compared to women. Directing women to some careers and occupations that are discriminatory towards women may be of inevitable consequences like wage disparities as this profession are always lowly paying.
Gender pay may be caused by many factors which include the societal expectations. Girls get directed to careers that are considered to be for women (Ruggles 1799). For instance, most parents may have expectations that their sons work in science-related occupations as well as a technology even though their daughters may be performing better in sciences or mathematics subjects. Parental expectations have a high correlation to the future of careers chosen by their children. Even though women have been found to dominate the medical field, mostly nursing. Very few women are seen to enroll in colleges related to technology, engineering, and other careers as compared to men.
Most women may fail to pursue certain careers due to the industry culture that is set (Haslam 485). In the Computer science field, for example, not many women are found in this field, this itself may discourage young girls from pursuing this field. If employers have a negative attitude towards female employees, they may end up paying them less than their male counterparts. A recent study found out that most women who work in Computer science, engineering, and technology professions quit their jobs due to work-related pressures as well as the hostility in the workplace.
The critics of this gender gap are often seen stating that the women who work hard and persevere the challenges laid down in their occupations become successful. This is a false analogy as the women in top paid professions experience more gender pay gaps as compared to their counterparts who are in low paying professions (Haslam 484). The gender pay gaps in the high paying jobs are influenced by gender discrimination. Some practices have been adopted, which are seen to favor men in this profession. For example, practices like rewarding the most hardworking employees who work for long hours and are available at odd hours is bias as the women are needed at home to tend to their families.
From the above example, it’s clear that women are disadvantaged by the societal expectations exerted on them. They have to spend time with their children and tend for them. They have to also take care of their old parents who need to be cared for due to old age. The women can’t work all those hours during the week and still be required to come to work on weekends(Pucheta et al. 468). The unavailability of women in jobs during odd hours may see them get disadvantaged and fail to get promotions. This factor makes many women remain stagnant in a certain profession for a long time.
Most families, where both the wife and husband have equally demanding jobs, it is the responsibility of women to take care of the grandparents who are admitted in the hospital. The wife’s career may be compromised for her to be available to take care of their sick parents. Men will always get the upper hand in situations like this as society lays a load of domestic work on women as compared to their male counterparts (Gupta et al. 2036).
Women dominated professions pay less. This phenomenon suggests that the field that most women work in is considered to be low paying. When women are directed towards low paying jobs, they are most likely to get paid lower wages (Gupta et al. 2036). For example, most women in the United States work as nurses, home aides, etc. Most go for this profession as they see it logical to pursue a career where no men are dominating as it would mean they would still get paid less.
Most women go to female-dominated professions because they want to earn higher wages. This is true because if they pursue a male-dominated career, they may face a hostile environment like the women who go for technology-related jobs. The female-dominated field seems very luring to the female as they will have better chances of competing with their gender (Angelov 549). It’s true to assume that career choice is highly influenced by the constraints that are already instilled in a society based on gender pay.
A recent study by Angelov (545)” portrays that fields that have witnessed massive entrants into the occupation have also been reported to have a decrease in the pay. “It has been reported to be decreasing as the women continue increasing in their career. The phenomenon that when women enter an occupation, wages reduced after a while. This is true, according to many researchers. This finding means that women are seen to devalue an occupation.
The number of women in occupation has a relative proportion to the wages paid in the industry as the women’s efforts are devalued. For instance, the programming field has changed from an all-inclusive field to a male-dominated industry. After the men dominated this field, the salaries were increased as compared when the field was both genders dominated.
Conclusion
The gender pay gap is a real problem in our society that has been hurting and oppressing women in every sector. People often view the gap as not being discrimination but just see it as a being caused by different factors. The factors which include career differences are themselves fruits of the discrimination on women. The disparity is contributed by many societal norms and expectations that are forced on women. The forces that lead to this disparity are mostly out of the control of women. The studies being conducted on this issue should not concentrate on blaming the women for being paid lower wages as compared to men. Still, they should instead focus on identifying the causes of the wage disparity and provide recommendations to which the gap may be closed for good.
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