Gender Based Wage Gap

Discrimination in all forms has been a persistent issue since a very long time; whether it is ethnicity, gender or physical appearance. One important discrimination that people face everyday, is in the workplace. Women earn 79- cents for every dollar a man earns. “An awful lot of times people will say there is no income gap”(Puzzanghera), but there is. Women being equally qualified and skilled for the same job a man does is paid less than him. This inequality is traced back to the widely accepted belief that men are more able than women in general. Females differ from males by biological characteristics but that does not necessarily mean that women should have unequal access to opportunities, power and money. Gender based Wage Gap is negatively

According to Heidi Hartmann, a feminist economist and founder and president of the Washington-based Institute for Women 's Policy Research, “The Census Bureau reported in August, based on the Current Population Survey, that women’s real median earnings fell by $171, or 0.6 percent, from 2002 to 2003, while men’s increased by $336, or 0.8 percent. (The increase for men was not statistically significant, but the decrease for women was)”(Heidi). In light of these trends in women’s wages, women’s economic status has endured in the post recession period. Ida L. Castro, in her article on Discrimination in the workplace says, “ Over a woman’s lifetime, unequal pay hurts a lot. It directly affects how much- or how little- her pension and social security payments will be. Getting old often means becoming poor- for many women and people of color” (Castro). The Wage Gap is not healthy and affects a woman’s financial stability in the future, especially now that many women are the sole providers for their family. The Gender Wage Gap does not only affect women but a country 's economy as a whole. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Heidi Hartmann advances the argument that eliminating this imbalance and equalizing pay between men and women could have a positive effect on the American economy. She estimates that if the pay gap were to close, the

Steps have been taken to end this injustice, and over the years the Wage Gap has narrowed, but yet is substantial. The 2009 Lilly Ledbetter Act, protects a woman’s right to take action against pay discrimination is not enough. Despite of laws that don’t allow gender wage gap, it continues. “Federal law already prohibits gender-based pay discrimination, but violations are hard to prove and wage gaps persist in nearly every industry” (Cowely). This indicates that the government needs to pass additional wage equality legislations with severe consequences if violated and also ways to expose the employers that practice this injustice. Since some people may not have the slightest idea that gender based wage gap exists, “Once pay gaps are revealed in black-and-white data, there is an additional incentive for employers to address it” (Puzzanghera). It might raise more awareness amongst the population and might be viewed to as an unjust, inhumane thing and not just illegal.

It is important to give more attention to the fact that persistence of the gender wage gap cannot be clarified by contrasts in education, skills or experience. The gender wage gap is real, and has serious outcomes. The consequences of the wage gap on society are various and don 't just influence women. Gender segregation at work confines financial development, builds poverty and negatively affects the riches and prosperity of families. Over the years measures have been taken to close the Gender Wage Gap but it