Gender Pay Inequality

Bobbit-Zeher states four identifying factors related to education which she accredits to the existence of the gap, “Gender differences on four of these measures, in particular, are implicated in the gender income gap: (1) choice of a college major, (2) skills as measured by standardized tests, (3) amount of education, and (4) selectivity of the college attended (Bobbit-Zeher, 2007, p. 4). This article is valuable in pointing out early factors which help to perpetuate the gender gap and provide a solid historical foundation for the research and scope of this thesis. This is mainly due to the consideration that the factors related to education have long been the basis for the form of discrimination that is related to this pay inequality. The

To start with Palmer discusses the equal pay act of 1963 however, as can be seen the legislation is a little dated. Since this legislation is older and has been bypassed in several ways as par the research above shows one can deduce that overall the bill lacks some of the initial bite that was to accompany the bark that was the intention of this legislation. It is because women were falling through the cracks of the legal system and not provided protection under the equal pay act of 1963 that President Barack Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act which granted the seeking of restitution regardless of when the discrimination took place. This is highly relevant in that one would not know when they were being discriminated against and or have the proper evidence of such discrimination occurring. One such form of discrimination that needs to be accounted for as Palmer points out is maternal profiling. At times companies may profile women and assume at some point in their career they are going to have and raise children. Due to this assumption the company will invest less human capital in women, which is less training, maybe not promoting them or giving them responsibility etc. Thus, in dual income families when a couple does decide to have children a caregiver is usually picked, this job is usually given to the spouse who makes less income as the spouse who makes more is seen as a more valuable asset to the family. So in the end because of this the profiling company creates self fulfilling prophesies by paying women less they are pigeonholed into giving up their jobs when a family does come into the picture. Understanding the laws surrounding discrimination is important for HR personnel in that as an HR representative future graduates will be giving advice based on current laws and creating/enforcing policy