GRSJ224/Pay Gap

Gender Wage Gap

Gender Wage Gap refers to the difference in earnings between men and women. According to American Association of University of Women, female in North America on average earn 21% less compared to men or 78 cents for every white man's dollar. Statistics showed that women in every state experience pay gap and that some states is worse than others. Moreover, women face a pay gap nearly every occupation from janitor to doctors. Tackling the gender wage gap issue is a hot topic in modern day society as people demand for equal opportunity, particularly in workplace environment. As a result, numerous anti-discrimination legislation and equal rights provisions has been passed in many countries to close the gender wage gap. However, despite the said efforts, the issue on gender pay gap remains today.

Overview

Between 1950- 1960s , job listings that were published by the newspapers were separated for men and women. Jobs were classified according to gender and sex. Higher level jobs listing were only exclusive for male. This categorization of jobs according to sex caused inequalities between male and female. Women were paid less even though they were doing similar task and work for the exact hours as men. As a result, Equal Pay Act was implemented on June10,1963 to bring equality in earnings between men and women. Under this act, "it is illegal to pay women lower rates for the same job strictly on the basis of their sex" Ever since, the wage gap has been closing in a fairly slow rate. Moreover, the wage gap has narrowed largely due to women's progress in education as well as workforce participation. Even though, the gap are getting closer, it does not appear to close anytime soon. Today, women working full time were only paid 79% of what men were getting paid. There is a gap of 21%. There are numerous factors to explain why the wage gap persisted after four decades. The most prevailing explanation for this gender wage gap is gender based discrimination. Gender based discrimination contributed to the 40% of the gender wage gap. Many employers believe that men are more capable of doing better task and job compared to women; as a result, women are unable to participate in most of the male dominated career.

Measurements of Gender Wage Gap

While there are many approaches to measure the gender wage gap, majority of the research, including governmental researches, estimates the gender wage gap using information derived from full-time workers that work at least 35 hours per week and full year workers. In the contrary, gender wage gap can also be calculated by the average gross hourly earning of men and women.
Gender Pay Gap can be calculated using the following function:

${\text{Gender Pay Gap}}={\frac {\text{Median Earnings of Women (full-time, year-round workers)}}{\text{Median Earnings of Men (full-time, year-round workers}}}$

The final figure derived from the formula can be interpreted as a ratio of income taken home by women compared to men. This approach also does not compare men and women doing identical job, but solely reflects the median income of men and women in general.

Gender Pay Gap for Women of Colour

According to the statistic of AAUW, they discovered that there is a significant difference in terms of wages between white men and women of colour. While white women get 78% of what white men made, African-American women or other races get only 64% or lower in terms of wages compared to white men. Women of colour are more likely to work in a lower paid fields such as service industries.Moreover, they also tend to hold hourly wage jobs. AAUW stated " differences in education also don't explain the full gap, because many women of colour tend to be paid less than their white peers even when they have the same educational background." The prevalent reason to explain for the unequal paid between white men and women of colour is due to discrimination. Women in the same jobs with the same educational level do not earn the same wages. For instance, black and Hispanic households in general do not make as much as white ones: "white households made $58270 in 2013 at the media, while Hispanic ones made $40,963 and black ones made $34,598." Furthermore, Black male and female applicants are half less likely to get call back from the job offers compare to white counterpart. This demonstrated that discrimination still persisted in today's society.

Gender Wage Gap by Age

Statistics have shown most women suffer from gender wage gap. However, age seems to have an effect on the magnitude of wage gap as well. The census data collected from 2000s shows that gender wage gap generally increases by age group.The wage gap between men and women of ages 25-34 is 83.8% while women between 45-54 are paid 63.78% compared to what men would make.

This does not mean that young women are immune to gender wage gap. In year 2000, young women with the same education and credentials would only make 69% as much as what men would make. According to Eurostat, this pattern is strongly apparent in European countries such as Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, and Spain. Pew Research's studies found that it is possible that the gender pay gap widens in correlation to age due to women generally experience career interruptions during their working life, such as pregnancy. Further, according to a study from an economist from Cornell University, "generous parental leave policies could jeopardize all women’s chances for promotion."

Global Progress to bridge the Gender Wage Gap

According to the Conference Board of Canada, a Gender Wage Gap around 13% or lower is considered a healthy "A-grade" performance.

United States

In April 2014, President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order to prohibit workplace discrimination and empower workers to take control over negotiations regarding their pay. Obama also signed a Presidential Memorandum to require federal contractors to submit statistical analysis on employee wage by race and gender, which helps employers take proactive efforts to ensure fairness in compensation for their associates.

United Kingdom

Prime Minister David Cameron announced that he want's to end the gender pay gap. Cameron announced that every company with more than 250 employees are required to publish the difference between the average pay of their male and female employees. He also introduced a new compulsory National Living Wage, which is a raise of minimum wage to £9 an hour that will be introduced in April 2016 and be fully deployed across the country by 2020. The new Living Wage is expected to primarily help women who tend to occupy most lower paid jobs.

Taiwan

In Taiwan, the Act of Gender Equality in Employment Act (hereinafter "Gender Equality Act") passed in 2002 requires that men and women be compensated equality if they are doing the same job. This act prohibits any discrimination against gender or sexual orientation, and employees much receive equal pay for equal work or equal value. The Gender Equality Act effectively makes previously legislations illegal, such as acts that require women to quit their job as soon as they are married or pregnant. The Gender Equality Act also forbids employers to seek potential hires based on gender unless proper justifications were established.