Description
A creative title A clear, well-developed introduction that sets up the thesis Clear and focused topic sentences Paragraphs that adhere to topic sentences Transitions from one paragraph to the next that link ideas logically I.C.E.—introduce, cite, explain the quote Counter-arguments and rebuttals Examples from The Best We Could Do (If applicable) At least FIVE credible, peer reviewed sources from our library databases Quotes from at least TWO AUTHORS that support your argument A conclusion that reaches a larger point or truth Should be 6+ pages long
Jing Gong
English 1B
Daniel Keener
7/28/2020
Closing the Gender Pay Gap
For decades, the average women income has been a fraction of men, and gender income inequality on workplace can be described as unequal treatment between men and women, which is an issue for women for a long times. By the 1990s, the United States had virtually caught up and had a gender pay ratio of 76.3 percent, which was only slightly below the average for the other countries of 77.4 percent (Blau and Kahn 2002). The higher the position, the fewer female occupations, the greater income gap between men and women. When looking at all industry sectors together and adjusting for these factors, we estimated that female managers earned 81 cents for every dollar earned by male managers in 2007, compared to 79 cents in 2000. The estimated adjusted pay difference varied by industry sector, with female managers’ earnings ranging from 78 cents to 87 cents for every dollar earned by make managers in 2007, depending on the industry sector (Kirsten A 2011). Research also shows that the pay gap between women and men is existed even both gain the same degree under the same experiences. The consequence of gender income inequality is that women are losing money in all sectors. Luckily this gender pay gap arises public attention and is narrowing done, it is still a huge social problem. Therefore, due to the fact that there exists wage gap between men and women, we should close the gender income gap by mean of reversing the traditional conception of weighing men against women, improving the professional education of women in general and expanding job opportunities for women.
The factors that could affect gender pay gap include gender discrimination and bias in hiring and pay decision, female working industries attracting low wage, women are cut working hours due to take more time to raise a family and women are ruled out in term of age. Gender discrimination means conscious or unconscious prefer male to attain job opportunity. Considering bias about men are more reasonable and organized, whose win superiority in labor market. Research shows that almost a third (29.28%) of all respondents indicates they perceived bias in hiring/advancement due to gender (Primary Research Group 2017). Gender discrimination is existed and hurt women in many sectors. Another cause to gender pay gap is that female attract works in low wage. Women are rejected by high salary industry and their doctrine is to take care of family, it is easier for women to participate in part-time job and some other low income jobs. Richard Reich explains female have been slightly affect by global economic upheaval impact in his book Why the Rich are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer, he writes, “Overall, the decline in routine jobs has hurt men more than women. This is because the routine production jobs held by men in high-volume metal-bending manufacturing industries had paid higher wages than the routine production jobs held by women in textiles and data processing” (Reich P215). Additional cause is come from women are cut working hours due to take more time to raise a family. When conflicts between family raising and money earning, women are considered to sacrifice career to family. They are easier to be cut the working hours for this stereotype. Furthermore, gender pay gap is due to the reason that women are ruled out in term of age. Old women are fragile and weak to find a job. They are refused for the reason of age limitation. Without enough income old women are living under poverty and sickness. Women over the age of fifty, on the other hand, are more apt to claim that their workplace adversities result solely from age discrimination…as a female worker approaches middle age, she is more likely to be discarded by employers holding that view. (Gregory and Raymond F 2003).
Due to gender discrimination exists in labor market, women are become negative participating in labor market and step backward in their abilities. For one thing, if women know they will be treated unequally, they will choose not to participate in labor market. Undoubtedly, there are some aspects need women to fulfill such as nursery and education. The tenderness and kindness of women can make the patients feel happier. In education, female teachers will criminal possibilities about sexual assault. For another thing, due to unwilling attend the labor market, women are becoming less experiences and losing their abilities to solve the problem. For experiencing gender pay inequality will exhaust women energy on work and hurt their feeling of money motivation. They will become self-denial and lost self-confidence on workplace. Their attitude towards laissez-faire and step back to family, growing more dependant on husbands. For the single mother, she might depend on welfare to feed her family and become irresponsible.Welfare moms, who depend on public assistance to limit paid work and spend more time at home are vilified as lazy, abusing the system, and shrinking their duty to children and society (Judith Hennessy 2015) . The mother who would stay at home supported by her husband or welfare check does not reap society’s blessing for her devotion to children.
As the gender pay gap affects women a lot, it is most important to adjust gender discrimination to isolate the gender pay gap. In my prior part I analyze that gender discrimination is the main reason to affect pay gap, thus to eliminate this discrimination is very important. Statistics claim show economic discrimination against women due to their characteristic, physical and mental factors, but educational background, working experiences and working hours. The fact that women are often being paid less than men for doing the exact same job should be adjust too. This requires the government to implement a series of measures to change this inequality. In Created Equal by Friedmans who says that “Everyone should have the same level of living or of income, should finish the race at the same time… The attempt to promote it has been a major source of bigger and bigger government,” (Freidmans, Created Equal, p128-129). For one thing, government should make it illegal for employers to pay inequality. For another thing, government should encourage more women to take jobs that pay more. Additionally, women who have to raise children should be provided free child care. Through a series of policy adjustments, the gender pay gap will be narrowed down greatly.
The leading view among economists is that education change the gender pay gap and play the role in income raising and earning equality. On one hand, since differences in education is contribute to the differences in wages, to increase education attainment by women can help earning money. Ignorance is related to poverty, the effective method to reverse poverty is to attend education. In The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui, Bui’s mother spend a long time to study for certificate and earning money. Ma says, “ I’d like to study computers. We can get good jobs in computers” (Bui P 286). On another hand, education is contribute to women’s physical and mental health which help them to fulfill better on their workplace. Scientific knowledge is a crucial to approach health. It is in common sense that public activities is based on policy advocated. People know sugar will lead to diabetes and more salt intake will lead to kidney disease. Advertisement appeal to not work hard to avoid heart disease. All of which are based on scientist knowledge. In mental health, adequate knowledge will lead women to the way of problem-analyzing and problem-solving. In addition, correlated the education and occupation is the way for women to approach high salaries.
As research studied that women are under unequal opportunities on workplace, an effective method to close the gender pay gap is to open more opportunities for women to enter, such as cutting-edge science and technology, and class of senior management. An assembly of women working field are caregivers, teachers, house-workers, which are paid less than those in high techniques. While men are dominate the field of high salaries. For this reason women at college are less interested in STEM field. More opportunities mean more incomes. Women should be provided more opportunities to earn money. Laws and policies have also made it clear that wage differentials should be abolished. When it became clear by the mid-1970s that the Equal Pay Act’s mandate of “equal pay for equal work” would not close the wage gap, women began to focus on “between-job” pay claims brought under Title VII (Nelson, Robert L., Bridges, and William P. 1999). As more women demand equal opportunities, the gender wage gap will get closer.
Some may argue that raising women salary will encourage them work outside and ignore taking care of family. Actually this is not true because the same situation happens in men but no one question them. The problem itself is discriminatory. Actually it is not contradiction between taking care of family and going out to work. There are a lot of examples of women being able to take care of their families and work at the same time. An illustrative example is a 1988 United Airlines commercial showing a briefcase-toting career mother dropping off her child at school, hopping on a plane and then dazzling her clients in a business meeting, and whooshing back in time to collect her child at the end of the day (Orgad Shani 2019). With the development of society, women may desire to balance their work and life and initiative make an effort to keep it. Another voice is about women are falling behind during nursery baby and cannot catch up again after returning to their work. The catchword is called “motherhood penalty”. Firstly, men are contribute the same works as women do within childcare work . Secondly, motherhood is not about being out of touch with society. Contrarily, it is a kind of work as integration which requires observation, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Motherhood is sensitive and nuanced enough to qualify them for any job. Thirdly, if our society initiative rule out women who are already being mothers, women may refuse to delivery baby which lead to low birth rate. Consequently, the labor productivity of the society will become less and less, which is not conducive to the creation of social value and social progress.
As I analyzed gender pay gap is unequal which need to be closed by means of eliminating gender discrimination, improve women education and provide women more work opportunities. Pay gap is real and it hurts women a lot. The impact of discrimination and inequality will haul women back to depend on their husband and lost their freedom and independence. It is a social retrogression. The positive measure is to respect women and their work, paying equal according to their abilities. The composition of relationships between men and women is very delicate, which significant affect social energy with which gender enact in different social situation. It is the general trend to declining gender income inequality with which may hard to realize immediately but still need multiple endeavors to approach it for our society balanced.
Work Cited
Thi Bui. The Best We Could Do. 2018. Edited by Clarissa Wong. Print. P 286.
Friedman Milton and Friedman Rose D. Free to Choose A Personal Statement. Created Equal. 1980. Print. P128-129.
Reich. Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer. P215. http://www.wrneuman.com/paradox/supplement/reich.pdf
Francine D Blau, and Lawerence M. Kahn. At Home and Abroad: U.S. Labor Market Performance in International Perspective. Russell Sage Foundation, 2002. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1066594&site=ehost-live.
Poulsen, Kirsten A. Exploring Pay and Management Gaps for Women. Nova Science Publishers, Inc, 2011. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1512047&site=ehost-live.
Primary Research Group Staff. International Survey of Business & Economics University Faculty: Outlook for New Position Openings and Tenure. Primary Research Group, Inc, 2017. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1717432&site=ehost-live.
Gregory, Raymnd F. Women and Workplace Discrimination: Overcoming Barriers to Gender Equality. Rutgers University Press, 2003. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=104922&site=ehost-live.
Judith Hennessy. Work and Family Commitments of Low-Income and Impoverished Women: Guilt Is for Mothers with Good Jobs. Lexington Books, 2015. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=969869&site=ehost-live.
Nelson, Robert L., and William P. Bridges. Legalizing Gender Inequality: Courts, Markets and Unequal Pay for Women in America. Cambridge University Press, 1999. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=74330&site=ehost-live.
Shani Orgad. Heading Home: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality. Columbia University Press, 2019. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1948712&site=ehost-live.
