FACTORS LEADING TO WAGE GAP IN MEN AND SALARY
Introduction
The wage gap in gender is the difference in pay between women and men. The pay gap has been a drawback for decades in the labor force. Despite females constituting half of the labor force, their pay is lesser so than men. Even though laws for gender equality have put in place, women and men and women are not equal during payment. This gap is factual, and it huts females across the board because it possesses a negative impact making the women feel powerless and less of worth.
This paper seeks to shed light on the factors that cause the gender wage gap. Such factors include motherhood, education, occupation, discrimination, social norms, differences in psychological attributes, the balance between work and life, and how the work is valued. Although, the two main factors are; work patterns and segregation. The wage gap varies between part-time work and full-time work. Often women are on part-time employment compared to men who are on full-time jobs. The pay gap links to women taking up unpaid family duties (Milner and Susan 595). They are working part-time guarantees low remuneration over time.
Nevertheless, motherhood leads to career breaks leading to losing time out of the workforces. Women typically enter and pull out of the workforce frequently more than men, basically because of child-rearing and building homes. Most women take time from their occupation to be a parent. The majority of employers and organizations prefer consistency and prioritize long, continuous, and stable hours rather than flexible schedules, an inclination that tends to position child-bearing women at a disadvantage. In the workplace, the motherhood fine exists (Woodhams and Atkinson 43). In that, the penalty is when a woman returns to work after three or six months of maternity leave, although women should not be reprimand for making their personal choices.
Also, is occupation, characteristics of the job. Often, men and women pursue different majors on campuses, and hence some professions pay more than others. Besides, after school, women settle for jobs like teaching and secretaries while men work in engineering, computer science, finance, and management areas. Studies show that women tend to choose their occupations based on flexibility. Discrimination is also another factor (Canon and Golan, 140). Most times, women working in the same profession as men tend to be underpaid even if they are doing the same work. Sometimes they are demoted after returning from their maternity leave. However, if a female in women-dominated occupations were to enter the male professions, they would earn lesser or similar to their women counterparts in the women-dominated rules. Generally, women are underrepresented when it comes to senior management roles. Females tend to work in jobs lower than their qualifications and skill.
In the article, fair play equal pay by Archer, Alfred, and Martine Prange (2019), it states that a more significant number of women are graduates compared to men. Women are advancing in science, engineering, technology, and mathematics. Nevertheless, they still lag because traditionally, this career is male-dominated. It is clear that in modern times, men and women have the same attributes; same education and similar capacity.
Conclusion
I allude that the wage gap is a reality. It cuts across the whole world. The wage gap is usually presumed not to be proof of discrimination. However, all this other factor is affected by gender bias. The blame should not be shifted on women for not earning much. Instead, an examination of the economy should be done on why it keeps providing unequal opportunities to females at every stage of their training, education, and occupation. Besides, to narrow this gap, approaches such as; flexible working conditions, availing affordable and quality child care, and increasing the minimum pay should be put into place.
Works cited
Milner, Susan, et al. “Challenging gender pay gaps: Organizational and regulatory strategies.” Gender, Work & Organization 26.5 (2019): 593-598.
Woodhams, Carol, Sheila Wild, and Carol Atkinson. “Gender pay gaps at Southside University Hospital Trust.” Case Studies in Work, Employment, and Human Resource Management. Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020.
Archer, Alfred, and Martine Prange. “‘Equal play, equal pay’: moral grounds for equal pay in football.” Journal of the Philosophy of Sport 46.3 (2019): 416-436.
Canon, Maria, and Limor Golan. “Gender Pay Gap May Be Linked to Flexible and Irregular Hours.” The Regional Economist July (2016).