Women’s Place in the Workplace
With the use of many scholarly sources this report will explore the issue of gender wage gap with respect to men and women in the work force, mainly in Canada. Gender wage gap has been around for centuries, from before work was paid in wages and women were regarded as non-skilled workers, to present day where women are seen making $0.74 for every dollar a man makes in the same position. These issues of gender wage gap are as much related to gender discrimination as they are to the pre-determined social expectations of men and women. This report will explore the questions of why is there such a large pay gap, does a women’s position within a company determine the size of the gender wage gap, and finally, is there …show more content…
One source argues that more women in management will help to reduce the gender wage gap because these new female managers will bring up the past inequity issues experienced by female employees, in order to deal with them. For example, Reskin explains “The basic cause of the income gap is not sex segregation but men’s desire to preserve their advantaged position and their ability to do so by establishing rules to distribute valued resources in their favor” (Reskin, 1988). What this means is that income gap is not due to discrimination as much as it is due to men wanting to continue to be the dominating sex within the workplace. Another perspective would be that more women in management roles will see an increase in the wage gap due to a need for the women manager to ‘fit in’ within a male dominated …show more content…
This report took a brief look at the different reasons for gender wage gap including discrimination, women in managerial positions, as well as increased education. We can conclude that discrimination plays the biggest role in the gender wage gap issue, with a reported 15% of the issue resulting from it according to P.E.C. (Ontario Goverment, 2012). It was also seen that women in managerial roles either contribute to the narrowing gap by bringing to light unresolved issues, or have a negative impact on the gap due to a need to ‘fit in’ and meet the expectations of male colleagues. Lastly, we explored the possibility of increased education being a way to narrow the difference in pay between men and women. This report discovered that although more women than ever are finishing post-secondary education (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2009), they are still not seeing a corresponding pay increase. Unfortunately we have only explored three possibilities for the reason why there is still a gender wage gap today, there are still so many reasons contributing, including a pre-conceived notion that women are not as skilled as men and therefore do not deserve equal wages.
With the use of many scholarly sources this report will explore the issue of gender wage gap with respect to men and women in the work force, mainly in Canada. Gender wage gap has been around for centuries, from before work was paid in wages and women were regarded as non-skilled workers, to present day where women are seen making $0.74 for every dollar a man makes in the same position. These issues of gender wage gap are as much related to gender discrimination as they are to the pre-determined social expectations of men and women. This report will explore the questions of why is there such a large pay gap, does a women’s position within a company determine the size of the gender wage gap, and finally, is there …show more content…
One source argues that more women in management will help to reduce the gender wage gap because these new female managers will bring up the past inequity issues experienced by female employees, in order to deal with them. For example, Reskin explains “The basic cause of the income gap is not sex segregation but men’s desire to preserve their advantaged position and their ability to do so by establishing rules to distribute valued resources in their favor” (Reskin, 1988). What this means is that income gap is not due to discrimination as much as it is due to men wanting to continue to be the dominating sex within the workplace. Another perspective would be that more women in management roles will see an increase in the wage gap due to a need for the women manager to ‘fit in’ within a male dominated …show more content…
This report took a brief look at the different reasons for gender wage gap including discrimination, women in managerial positions, as well as increased education. We can conclude that discrimination plays the biggest role in the gender wage gap issue, with a reported 15% of the issue resulting from it according to P.E.C. (Ontario Goverment, 2012). It was also seen that women in managerial roles either contribute to the narrowing gap by bringing to light unresolved issues, or have a negative impact on the gap due to a need to ‘fit in’ and meet the expectations of male colleagues. Lastly, we explored the possibility of increased education being a way to narrow the difference in pay between men and women. This report discovered that although more women than ever are finishing post-secondary education (Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2009), they are still not seeing a corresponding pay increase. Unfortunately we have only explored three possibilities for the reason why there is still a gender wage gap today, there are still so many reasons contributing, including a pre-conceived notion that women are not as skilled as men and therefore do not deserve equal wages.