Thesis On Gender Pay Gap

In 2010, President Obama addressed the issue of the gender wage gap in a written statement that stated “even in 2010, women make only 77 cents for every dollar that men earn”. The president also put pressure on the committee to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act that gives women the right to sue their employees if they’re not being paid the same as men, provided they have the same skills, experience and education. The act takes immediate steps to narrow down the wage gap, if it actually existed. Nevertheless, despite that bill being passed, many argue that the wage gap is a result of “sex discrimination”. They believe in this part of the world, women are drawing even with men in terms of education and experience, yet men are paid more and do better

However, this does not show any sign of sex discrimination as there are other factors that are not being considered while making such strong assumptions. Firstly, the most important factor, occupational segregation. Over 40% of women enter professions like nursing, teaching, health service etc. These occupations pay less compared to other occupations. Only 15% of men work in these occupations. The top five woman-heavy majors were family and consumer sciences/human sciences (88% female); library science (87%); health professions and related programs (85%); public administration and social service professions (82%); and education (80%).(Furchtgott-Roth, 2014) Secondly, the numbers of working hours that both men and women work are different. On an average, women work for relatively lesser number of hours compared to men. Statistics show that men and women who work more than 40 hours a week, women make 88 cents for every dollar men earn. But for men and women who work for 30 to 35 hours a week, the pay gap is actually negative, i.e. women make 1.09 dollars for every dollar men earn. Does that still mean that the wage gap is a result of sex

Women are not discouraged to enroll in higher paying fields. They choose to graduate in English literature, Social Sciences, Communications, and Arts. These fields are relatively low paid fields than the sciences or commercial fields. Married women that have children temporary opt out of employment or dramatically reduce their number of working hours for childcare responsibilities. According to Andrew Biggs’s article published in the National Review in 2010, “women are also four times more likely to leave the workforce temporarily to care for children. This reduces seniority and job-specific skills and discourages employers from investing in female employees, who may not stay long enough for such investments to pay off.” Also, women prefer to be employed in flexible jobs that have more benefits than higher wages, which are usually found in non-profit sectors of an economy. Besides, men take up jobs that involve more physical risk and danger in exchange for a higher wage. According to the American Association of University Women reports, men are 4 times more likely to negotiate and bargain when it comes to wages in a new job than women. Additionally, in sports, many argue that men deserve to be paid more than women despite both male and female doing the same job, i.e. playing the sport. This is because till date, men sports are given more importance than female sports and therefore sponsors and owners will make more money if they invest on males than