Gender Pay Gap Research Paper

Improved Essays
The historic gender wage gap has existed for numerous years and continued to alter the lives of people from all walks of life. The gender wage gap is influenced by discrimination, but other factors also contribute to the gap. All ages are susceptible to exposure to the wage gap. A grandmother, father, and teenage son could all be experiencing the gap in various ways at the same time. Although the gap can be experienced at any age, the gap increases with age (2). Job choice is a contributing factor in the composition of the gender wage gap. “Even women in highly compensated careers such as law and investment banking are more likely to choose pathways within those careers that allow more family time”(10). Women have characteristically had less …show more content…
As stated above, the gender wage gap has existed and been a prevalent issue for three decades going on four. Although the publicity and public disturbance is focused in the United States, the gap exists in all countries. The gap is shown in Oceania, Europe, and North America (7). Most wealthy countries experience the gap in one way or another …show more content…
Women wanted to change history and make a change for equal rights. With a heavy pull on American citizens, JFK endorsed and pushed the act through the American government (2). The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was enacted to fight gender wage discrimination (7). The Equal Pay Act instead made it much harder for workplace discrimination to be proven (3). The goal of the Equal Pay Act in the beginning was to eliminate the gap completely (3). While it did bring awareness to the issue, the gap is still not gone. Some employers did take steps to minimize the gap, but as a whole the gap remained intact. Women still remained less to their male counterparts despite the legislative changes during the time. “Most women started working full time in 1970” (3). More women began working harder even though they were already established and considered less (2). Women began to feel that rising up was the option left to utilize. “Though equal pay legislation was passed in 1963 that did not solve the problem of low pay in jobs, classed as female”

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    An Analysis of “The Gender Wage Gap – A Myth That Just Won’t Die” Abigail Hall is the author of, “The Gender Wage Gap – A Myth That Just Won’t Die.” She wrote this essay to state her opinion on the gender wage gap issue. With credentials such as assistant professor in economics at the University of Tampa, being a research fellow with the Independent Institute, and the JIN fellow in Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University you could feel safe in trusting her opinion. Unfortunately, Hall fails to cite reliable sources from which she found her evidence.…

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Whilst some still choose to ignore the issue, statistics show that “In 2014, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 79 percent of what men were paid, gap of 21 percent” (Hill, Catherine). This amount amasses very quickly and grows as one progresses in a field. Over a lifetime, men will earn over $30,000 more than a women. This number will soon increase, as women’s wages continually decrease whilst men’s increase. Since the year 2000, “men’s wages have rose 8.1% whilst women’s wages have fallen 6.8%” (Paquette, Danielle.).…

    • 1093 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Wage Gap Summary

    • 52 Words
    • 1 Pages

    The author describes how this gap still exists and various sources of it; occupational segregation, gendered organizations, employer discrimination and gendered family roles. The author has explored and described how this gap exists across nations, among women, different races, class and various statuses. This article brings new insights to wage gap topic.…

    • 52 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women have arguably been put on the backburner over time. Throughout history, women have struggled to gain equal rights and freedom in comparison. Despite numerous successes over time, including the women's suffrage amendment in 1920, there are still inequalities lingering around today. For example, many women today face unequal pay in the workforce compared to men. Even though in 1963 the Equal Pay Act legislation was passed, it has been decades and the policies are old and outdated.…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Pay Gap In The 1900's

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages

    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.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    own, since it’s a very vague overview of the inequality of pay. Since the organization that created this chart is so large it is a possibility that mistakes were made between wages offsetting the accuracy of the numbers. B. Plan of Investigation This investigation is focused on the impact the Equal Pay Act of 1963 had in equalizing the overall pay of members of society post-world war II U.S. by answering the question, “To what extent did the Equal Pay Act of 1963 equalize the overall pay of men and women in post-world war II U.S.?” To focus on the impact of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, the main body of evidence will focus on the role and types of jobs women held before world war II. This will then then transition to the changes World War II caused that affected the integration…

    • 1535 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Gender Wage Gap Justified

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages

    #5. Is the Gender Wage Gap Justified? According to Shackleton (2008), the gender wage gap has little to do with inequality. However, the main focus is the worthiness of women and men and how they vary in the workforce. Corporations are in the money-making business; by all means, people are paid according to accuracy, knowledge of the job, ability, and how the work is executed.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Lopsided Fortune Scale: Annotated Bibliography of the Gender Wage Gap Fixing a societal mentality can be difficult to change. Therefore, narrowing the gender wage gap can be quite challenging to achieve. When topics, such as the benefits men have over women, are mentioned, gender discrimination fills the minds of the population. This occurs because people take into consideration the fact that the gender wage gap occurs in every state, happens in nearly every occupation, affects all levels of education and race, and grows with age. As of today, women make up 47 percent of workers, they receive more college and advanced degrees than men, yet on average, still make less than men do (Lukas).…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gender Pay Unfair

    • 1280 Words
    • 6 Pages

    disappear and we can’t sit back hoping that it will. Closing the gender pay gap provides women with justice and equal opportunity for future generations, we need find the main sources affecting the unbalance in pay and work together to close the twenty percent wage gap. In order to break this trend, we need to understand the origin of the gap. Women aren’t given the same amount of motivation as adolescents to succeed thus giving men a significant advantage when they get paid. The traditional idea of a domestic role has a negative connotation and it currently continues to haunt working women.…

    • 1280 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Decent Essays

    No matter how much the prevalent era boasts on how it is no more captivated in the shackles of a concept as inferior as gender bias, gender discrimination does exist in some form or another till today. One of the greatest examples of this is the gender pay gap (GPG). • The gender wage gap as defined by the OECD (2016) is the difference between male and female median wages divided by the male median wages.…

    • 76 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Despite the passing of the Equal Pay Act in 1963, there was a substantial difference between the earnings of men and women because it did not cover the jobs that the majority of working women filled: domestics, agricultural workers, executives, administrators, or professionals. Moreover, the stereotype of the 1950’s-style housewife still persisted in society, pressuring working women to not only be successful in the workplace but at home as well. “The ideal woman has now become the concept of the super woman, who is expected to complete all the tasks of an ideal woman of the 1950s while maintaining the career goals of the modern woman.” On top of this, women were still discriminated in the workplace due to their gender,despite this being made illegal by 1964’s Civil Rights Act. In the first five years after the the Civil Rights Act was signed into a law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received fifty thousand complaints about gender discrimination.…

    • 1315 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    I intend to use this reference to establish that in more recent years our society has taken steps to fixes issues related to the gender wage gap that has plagued our culture. I will use the data provided to explain how it is being mitigated, if not completely solved for in some areas. Stewart, P. A., & Moore, J. C. (1992). Wage Disparities and Performance Expectations.…

    • 1022 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Women have been seen as less of a worker and more of a person who stays home with kids. Less educated in the past and further more less work experience. This bias is still ingrained in many people’s minds. This is most notably seen in the work force and pay gaps that are statistically shown. Woman make less than their male counterpart in every racial category, even with education and social status being the same, women make significantly less money.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Whether it is religion, sexuality, race, or even music taste, people are constantly finding ways to discriminate by differentiating people from each other. One element is gender pay gap--ever since the fall of Adam and Eve, women were always proven to be insignificant compared to men. Gender pay gap plays a negative role--socially, economically, and politically. Although the gender pay gap is a widespread problem that cannot be completely eradicated, society should be giving more of an effort into taking small steps to solving the problem so the future generations could benefit from knowing what is right -- by solving one of the most unfair stigmatized elements in society.…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Essay On Equal Pay

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages

    For the past decades history has shown a lot of male dominance, the women of today operate as effectively as men in the work field and therefore they deserve equal pay. The Wage Gap Persists: In Eileen Patten’s article, On Equal Pay Day, Key Facts About the Gender Pay Gap…

    • 1749 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays

Related Topics