About Women and Wage Inequality

Fairness and equity remain among the most debated issues between the male and female genders in the twenty-first century, due to the fact that it is obvious that women can do or accomplish what men can. According to Stanley and Jarrell (1998), the movement towards gender equity has enabled women to be regarded in the same roles as men, which was unthinkable in the early days of society. Since it is increasingly becoming accepted that both women and men require equal treatment, it is paramount that factors such as wages and the job positions that these genders occupy also be distributed fairly and equally with equal merit. However, this analogy has not been the case as most women occupy inferior positions despite having similar qualifications as their male counterparts (Darity Jr. & Mason, 2004). To make matters worse, these women are also underpaid in comparison to men who may occupy the same positions and with lower or similar qualifications. The paper intends to find out the reasons behind women being paid less than their male counterparts and identify the correctional measures to put in place for this inequality in terms of wages. Women deserve to be paid well just as men with the consideration of merit and qualification.

History of the Wage Structure

Darity Jr. and Mason (2004) disclose that in the early civilization periods, the wage structure was formulated to compensate workers for their labor that was evaluated depending on the difficulty of the tasks that were involved. In those historical periods, the men did most of the hard labor since they were cut for the physicality and strenuous activities that the tasks involved (Darity Jr. & Mason, 2004). The women were made to handle the household activities that were seen as far lighter and easy compared to the work that men were doing, which justified the wage structure. It was also noted that men were the heads of their families and were relied on to provide for the daily needs of the family, therefore having a superior wage in comparison to the women enabled them to provide for their families’ needs.

Race and Wages

Another historical fact was that most of the black people received lesser salaries compared to the whites since most of the black people were involved in blue-collar labor compared to the white persons who were more of the white-collar workers. Ely and Thomas (2001) argue that most of the black people were not as educated as the whites hence most of them were involved in supervised and hard labor compared to the whites who were involved in the running of the company. Given these reasons it was noted that most of the whites received higher salaries compared to the black person. However, due to more blacks going to school and gaining the knowledge needed in running the companies the salary structures were revised, however, due to race and discrimination factors, the white man still got paid better. This affected the black women mostly who were paid lesser than the black man.

Discrimination of Gender

As earlier noted, the women were assumed to be weak and could not perform the physically straining and hard labor that was given to the men (Darity Jr. & Mason, 2004). According to Lupton (2000), women were not supposed to be involved in hard labor as they were considered soft and could not be able to perform much of the activities that the men were capable of doing. Due to this belief, the women have been left out of promising jobs and career opportunities that they are more than capable of performing. Additionally, the societal beliefs that women are supposed to be the ones who perform household duties is a wrong analogy since they can do more than just cooking and cleaning (Scheider & Gould, 2016). The household duties that are left for women to do could also be done by the man so as to have a shared responsibility in the homes so as to create equal time for both the man and woman to pursue their career goals.

Most of the women today are educated and knowledgeable just as their male counterparts and have equally strong grades and job qualifications but are not paid the same as men as the man is considered a superior being to the ladies. The push to have equality is a step in the right direction as it is being seen that the ladies are also capable beings just as their male counterparts (Stanley & Jarrell, 1998). Therefore, women should receive equal salaries as men if they are qualified and perform as per the set standards in their jobs.

Conclusion

Having realized that it is as a result of the segregation of labor in the early days that made the wage gap to have a significant difference between the women and me, it is important to factor in the fact that times have changed. Currently, the women are able to go to schools and receive the same education as the men, graded and certified using similar criteria, therefore it is only logical if they receive equal salaries since they are equally qualified. As Vravec and Bacik (2012) point out that it is paramount to correct this social wrong that has had women be considered as inferior by giving them an equal and fair treatment and it starts with providing the qualified lady with an equal wage package as the man.

References

Darity Jr, W. A., & Mason, P. L. (2004). Evidence on discrimination in employment: Codes of color, codes of gender. In African American Urban Experience: Perspectives from the Colonial Period to the Present (pp. 156-186). Palgrave Macmillan US.

Ely, R. J., & Thomas, D. A. (2001). Cultural diversity at work: The effects of diversity perspectives on work group processes and outcomes. Administrative science quarterly, 46(2), 229-273.

Lupton, B. (2000). Maintaining masculinity: men who do ‘women's work’. British journal of management, 11(s1), 33-48.

Scheider, J. & Gould, E. (2016). “Women’s work” and the gender pay gap: How discrimination, societal norms, and other forces affect women’s occupational choices—and their pay. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved 6 March 2017, from http://www.epi.org/publication/womens-work-and-the-gender-pay-gap- how-discrimination-societal-norms-and-other-forces-affect-womens- occupational-choices-and-their-pay/

Stanley, T. D., & Jarrell, S. B. (1998). Gender wage discrimination bias? A meta- regression analysis. Journal of Human Resources, 947-973.

Vravec, J., & Bacik, R. (2012). Discrimination of Women in the Labour Market of SR and Models of Discrimination. Polish Journal of Management Studies, 5, 266- 278.