Inequality in the workplace
Inequality in the workplace remains a significant social issue in the modern world. Several women complain of the glass ceiling and the effects of unequal pay for similar work done by their male colleagues. However, there have been changes over the years as the role of women in economic roles has increased significantly. A change in the jobs that women perform has been identified as a sign within various cultural systems across the world. Issues on wage inequality has been streamlined through government and corporation policies that seek to achieve gender equality. Gender pay gap can be addressed through understanding the background on wage inequality across the globe while narrowing down to the gender pay gap age to offer informed analysis and recommendations.
Background on Wage Inequality
Women and work have been a subject of controversy in various cultures. Some culture prohibit women from working and male figures are required to provide for them and children. According to Ruth Margolies Beitler and Angelica R. Martinez (1), social status is a determinant of the type of job women perform. Most of the are left with menial jobs such as house chores depending on the patriarchal system, they find themselves. A look at the case of North African and Middle East identifies a change in the type of jobs women pursues given the influence of education. Besides, Theodore P. Gerber, and Olga Mayorova (171), chronic shortages within the labor market led women into jobs but “on average women earned about 70 percent of what men did.” The situation in Russia reveals the role of women in economic functions but there is still a hindrance factor towards equal pay in the nation. Also, women in Russia were identified to engage in poorer quality jobs compared to their male colleagues. They were likely to accept any jobs and it translated to female-headed households being poorer than male headed homes. In addition, women in dual-headed households had secondary earner status.
Gender Pay Gap
Gender pay gap entails a variation in pay for the same job for different genders. According to “The Truth about the Gender Pay Gap,” it entails “the difference in a woman from a man’s pay on average within a company. It is arrived at through looking at all female and all male employees within a company and ranking them based on highest to lowest paid then taking the average individual for every group. The gap in the earnings of the two middle individuals provides the median gender pay gap. A surprising statistic is that in the UK there is no data in any sector that proves women are better paid on average compared to men within the same role. It reveals that there has been a change in society over the years as some sectors have more women than men. A reflection of a minimal gender pays gap concern in modern society. The changes that have taken place over time have been observed in the Middle East and North Africa as well. According to Tanya Somanader, on average, women in America earn 78% of what men earned in 2013. The chart below reflects on the issue of gender gap pay in the United States over the years