When you look up the definition of the gender wage gap, the first definition you see is from the European Commissions which says, “the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men within the economy as a whole.” We have always had a wage gap between genders in the United States. The rights of women have changed immensely since the early 1900’s when women began entering the workforce, but there are still wage gaps by 64% between men and women. The wage gap effects peoples’ lives daily, and many don’t even realize it. World War I was the beginning of women entering the workforce full time. Men had left jobs and families to fight in the war. This made tremendous openings for women to fulfill the jobs of their husbands.
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Labor unions are groups of people, or workers, who protest for their rights and better interests. Women did have a small part in the workforce before WWI, but women were almost exclusively industrial factory workers before the war. One of the earlier Labor unions was The International Ladies Garment Workers Union(ILGWU). In 1911 the building that the ILGWU worked in caught fire (Shmoop Editorial Team). 146 women died in this fire, because working conditions in industrial factories were terrible. During this same time period, there was a woman that went by Mother Jones. She was a well known protester. She protested things such as mine working conditions and failure to follow child labor laws. Mary Harris Jones was a member of the unions Knights of labor and Industrial Workers of the World. However, some unions were only men. These unions used there power to continue to prevent women from entering the workforce. Some took it as far as “the United Auto Workers who opposed training any women until all unemployed men had work” (Shmoop Editorial …show more content…
Something that could also be progressive in closing the gender wage gap is getting rid of occupational segregation. Occupational segregation is, “ the distribution of people across and within occupations and jobs, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender” (Occupational Segregation). The opposite of this is called perfect integration, “where each group holds the same proportion of positions in an occupation as it holds in the labor force” (Occupational Segregation). The most superlative approach to closing the wage gap is putting women on corporate boards and in strong leadership positions equal with male
Labor unions are groups of people, or workers, who protest for their rights and better interests. Women did have a small part in the workforce before WWI, but women were almost exclusively industrial factory workers before the war. One of the earlier Labor unions was The International Ladies Garment Workers Union(ILGWU). In 1911 the building that the ILGWU worked in caught fire (Shmoop Editorial Team). 146 women died in this fire, because working conditions in industrial factories were terrible. During this same time period, there was a woman that went by Mother Jones. She was a well known protester. She protested things such as mine working conditions and failure to follow child labor laws. Mary Harris Jones was a member of the unions Knights of labor and Industrial Workers of the World. However, some unions were only men. These unions used there power to continue to prevent women from entering the workforce. Some took it as far as “the United Auto Workers who opposed training any women until all unemployed men had work” (Shmoop Editorial …show more content…
Something that could also be progressive in closing the gender wage gap is getting rid of occupational segregation. Occupational segregation is, “ the distribution of people across and within occupations and jobs, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender” (Occupational Segregation). The opposite of this is called perfect integration, “where each group holds the same proportion of positions in an occupation as it holds in the labor force” (Occupational Segregation). The most superlative approach to closing the wage gap is putting women on corporate boards and in strong leadership positions equal with male