Wage Gap between Men and Women: What Should Be Done?
Becky Kospanova
One of the undeniable facts of workplace statistics in the USA is the persistency of considerable wage gap between men and women. It has been calculated that on average women earn 77 cents to each dollar earned by men (2011 statistics) with no regard to ethnicity, occupation, educational level, and work experience. While it is an improvement from previous decades when women earned on average 57.6 cents to each dollar earned by men (1966 statistics), it is still a large difference. It is important to address the issue by looking at the actual situation regarding the wage gap, analyzing the factors which contribute to it, and seeing what has been done and what can be done to extinguish the pay difference between men and women.
According to Census statistics, on average, men earned $48,202 and women earned $37,118 in 2011. Economist Evelyn Murphy, the President of the Wage Project, estimates that due to wage gap, over the period of lifetime (47 years) full-time work, women will lose $ 700,000 for high school graduates, $ 1.2 million for college graduates and $ 2 million for professional school graduates. This potential difference in lifetime earnings is truly staggering, especially nowadays when more women than men graduate from college and, consequently, stand more to lose.
What are the factors which can explain this situation? Is there still gender-based discrimination at American workplace? Partially, the difference can be attributed to customarily role of women as primary caregivers for other family members. Therefore, they are more likely than man to work part-time, take some time off to care for children, and have gaps in their employment history which hinders their career growth. It is especially true for single mothers who disproportionally outnumber single fathers given our cultural and legislative predisposition of awarding single custody to mothers. While some percentage of the wage gap can in fact be ascribed to abovementioned factors, the picture is still bleak.
The American Association of University Women has shown that, keeping education quality and grades received equal, college-educated women earn 5 percent less during their first year at the job than their male counterparts.
Moreover, after ten years of equal commitment to their careers, the gap grows to 12 percent. The growing gap can be explained by the fact that if initially a woman gets a smaller paycheck then her consequent jobs would also
pay less because most employers calculate their salary scale on pay history. It is a vicious cycle. Some people argue that women get paid less because they do not negotiate their salaries as forcefully as their male peers. However, our cultural stereotypes often prevent women from doing so – assertive women are often viewed as difficult and aggressive, while assertive men are viewed as pro-active and energetic.
The idea that gender-based discrimination still exists in the USA is often disputed. After all, in 1963, President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act and later, Congress signed Title Seven of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibited sex discrimination at work. However, while women have a legal right to get paid equally, it did not translate into reality as yet. President Obama has tried to address the wage gap issue. Thus, on January 29, 2009 he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law, which repeals the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling of 2007 (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.) and allows victims of wage discrimination to hold their employers accountable and bring the practice to the court. However, on June 5, 2012, the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have greatly improved the chances of equal pay, has failed in the Senate on a 52-47 procedural vote.
It is necessary to work together to close the wage gap based on gender. As such, we need to appeal to our representatives in the Congress and Senate to work on the issue. We also need to address sociological issues by making child care affordable, by involving men in domestic chores more actively, and by impressing on our daughters the idea that it is OK to demand what they deserve.
