Personal Narrative: The Gender Pay Gap

This essay expresses the opinion of Tara Siegel Bernard on behalf of the existence of the gender pay gap and focuses on it being a primary issue in the workplaces of major companies. The essay goes on to discuss how our society expects women and men to both behave in particular ways and how that idea has contributed to the ever present pay gap, such as how “. . . the imbalance often traces back to women being hired at a lower salary than their male peers” and “. . . women are less inclined to ask for raises. . .” Pointing out the possible reasons for the gender pay gap helps to establish the need for companies and our country’s leaders to find solutions.

Numerous economists suppose that when work experience, education, and occupation are taken into consideration, women earn approximately equal to what men earn (Brittan & Onder 16). However, in recent decades, women have received more education, expanded their experience, and transferred toward higher paying occupations, so wouldn’t this mean that the wage gap would decrease? These economists state that since women, in general, are less involved in the labor market due to having children, providing elder care, this may lead to part-time work, meaning less pay than men, whom usually obtain full-time work. Also, women are also more likely to enter and leave work; women may lose their connection with the work force and may even regress professionally. While there are some factors that help explain the gap, a significant percentage remains unexplained, which is due to bias

The main purpose of the article, “Equal Pay Day: When, where and why women earn less than men” by Dana Ford, is to inform the audience about the pay gap between genders that still exists in the United States today. To emphasize on the subject of gender pay gap, Ford shows the reader how race, age, and even the state the woman lives in could affect how big or small the pay gap is. While the speaker, Dana Ford, may use a negative tone toward the issue, this newdesk editor is also aware of the progress in equality in the past 50 years. Ford states that “The good news is that the gender pay gap is getting smaller. In 1964, women on average were paid 59% of what men were paid.

In “Understanding the “Family Gap” in Pay For Women with Children”, Jane Waldfogel states that “the gap in pay between women and men has been narrowing, the gap between women with children and those without children has been widening” (137). This is happening because the policies for females’ pay during maternity leave and other family emergencies used to be not very clear (Waldfogel 137). It is demonstrated here that if the policies are more organized, there may be a much smaller gap between women with and without families, and between women and men. There was eventually a Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993 which cleared up all the confusion (Waldfogel 140). However, the United States still continues to have one of the shortest periods of time for maternity leave (Waldfogel 142).

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that single women who have never married earned 96 percent of men's earnings in 2012. When children comes into the picture, women tend to spend less time at work than men, furthermore, child care takes mothers out of the labor market, so when they return they have less work experience than similarly-aged males. Education also affects the wage gap. According to research studies, even within groups with the same educational attainment, women often choose fields of study, such as sociology, liberal arts or psychology, that pay less in the labor market. Men are more likely to major in finance, accounting or engineering.

Research shows wage gaps are solely a product of the choices of the second party. Woman have chosen what level of education they wish to pursue, the fields they wish to be in, and where they work. When looking back at a censuses of the early-to-mid 1900’s the majority of working women worked at small enterprises rather than booming companies: large Firms pay at higher rates, their payout going predominantly to males of the working class (Rubenstien, Michael Harvey). When taken under the scope, large enterprises rejected woman workers, and if they did hire, the lady’s income would be significantly smaller. Consequently, companies would deny the reason being that they were of a different sex, and rather blame it on how little education the skill the person had, “Frequently, even when given raises, their new pay still comes short of that of their male coworkers.

It is time to face the facts and find solutions for this epidemic. To obtain a better grasp of the severity of the gender wage gap, it is important to understand the data. Per the textbook, out of full-time, year-round workers in 2010, the gender wage gap was 77 percent. This number is found by dividing women’s annual income by men’s. Various other ways of measuring the gap exist, but they are

Although some people do say that the myth of the wage gap is just that for all others there is something we can do. In Ann Crittenden review of Don 't Get Mad, Get Even: Book Review of Getting Even: Why Women Don 't Get Paid Like Men—And What To Do About It Crittenden argues that while women essentially are even with men in terms of education and experience, women still get the short end of the stick and get payed less then males. She claims that even with the blatant sexsim going on in most workplaces there is soemthing all women can do, demand their fair share. Now this might seem as a simple task but if it was childs play, then women would have been getting paid fairly since they entered the workforce back in the the 60’s. She develops this claim by stating research done by Evelyn Murphy a financial analyst.

In America, oppression has almost completely been suppressed. Our country’s forefathers have put forth much effort to obtain this for their “land of the free.” Some have even lost their lives in an effort to eliminate oppression, yet it still exists. In the article I picked, the “pay gap” is discussed.

Shining some much-needed sunlight on the gender wage gap will make a difference for every one of us, men and women, right now.” (www.nytimes.com, 16). “It’s the twenty-first century, and the gender wage gap affects the daily life of women throughout the country, at every economic level, from cashier to CEO. Is it fair? No.

The gender pay gap is a significant issue in the United States because it promotes institutional and internal sexism and the unfair treatment of human beings. An infamous statistic about the wage gap has been the 77 cent statistic, stating that for every dollar a man earns, a woman earns 77 cents. The statistic is calculated by, “...dividing the median earnings of full-time, year-round, working women by the median earnings of full-time, year-round, working men, all rounded to the nearest $100” (Glynn 2). This, however, represents males and females from all occupations, causing opponents to argue that, because it does not represent the gap between people who have the same job, a wage gap does not exist. Nonetheless, multiple studies have proven that a gender pay gap does exist within the United States.

It may be 2018, but the gender pay gap is still here, why is that? Women have been and still are getting a lower pay than men to do the same job. Women are doing equal if not more work, but somehow make less. The following paragraphs will explain what is happening today like the fact that over time men 's pay increases more than women 's does. Besides that I will also mention that not just white women make less than men other cultures make even less than them, and I also will share real people speaking up about them being paid less than men.

The gender wage gap can be explained by the statistic; the female-to-male wage ratio of 2010 was 77% (Ferris & Stein, 2014 pg 255). This means that in 2010, the average female made 23% less in yearly earnings compared to men. Ethnicity can also be included to explain the wage gap. This can be explained by the statistic; Asian males make the most money compared to all other racial groups (Median, 2012). The symbolic interactionism view on gender can be explained as “Gender is learned through the process of socialization; gender inequalities are reproduced through interactions with family, peers, schools, and the media” (Ferris & Stein, 2014 pg 247).

In his article, Mark Perry, the professor of economics and finance, argues if the gender wage gap is caused by discrimination. In his opinion, simply claim that women are paid less due to discrimination is “fundamentally misleading” and “economically illogical.” There are more factors that affects this issue. In addition to the physical differences between men and women, different hours of work, importance degree of children, and occupational selections also influence different earnings.

The United States is currently facing an economical problem that involves males and female differences within the workplace. Males are given bigger and sometimes even better rewards for doing equal amounts of work as their female counterparts. Females are frequently not receiving the same wage even if they can complete the same job of a male. Also, females are less likely to get promoted within their job if they are competing against a male. A source states, “Women are now more likely to have college degrees than men, yet they still face a pay gap in every single education level,