Why do we continue to see gender inequality in pay? Below is a list of several articles focused on the topic of the gender wage gap. Choose 2 articles of interest to you to compare and contrast. Consider the following questions.
- What explanations are offered in the articles for the gender wage gap?
- Do the articles suggest an improvement in the gap? Why/Why Not?
- What are your reactions to the articles... do you agree or disagree? What points stood out to you most?
- What do you think women should do to try to improve the wage gap?
Synthesize your responses in a brief 1-2 paragraph post due by 10 am Friday 11/30. Be sure to include the name/link of the articles you are responding to in your post. Feel free to include reactions to the CNBC interview as well (linked below).
- Gender Pay Gap Persists (USA Today)
- Gender Pay Gap by Industry (NYTimes)
- Don't Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap (Bloomberg)
- The Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap (Time Magazine)
- Among Doctors, Too, Women are Paid Less (NY Times)
- Closing the Gender Wage Gap for Economic Stimulus (Huffington Post)
- Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than You Think (Wall Street Journal)
CNBC Interview
The two articles I read are the Gender Pay Gap Persists and the Gender Pay Gap by Industry. Both articles suggest that women only get paid about 80% of what men would make. They both also say that the salary of women truly depend on the career they choose. The one article by NY Times suggest that most women choose careers in lower paying fields such as education or the social sciences, unlike men who usually choose jobs in the medical field or computer science. Women are improving greatly, both articles suggest. One in particular says that in the past 50 years, women have greatly improved in occupations and education! We are on the right track, we can't give up now. To improve this pay gap, I think us women have to continue to get the best education possible, and keep working hard and improving in our fields. We are almost there!!!!
ReplyDeleteAlthough women have made tremendous strides in the job industry in terms of wage earnings and respect, there is still an unbalance between the genders. Two articles I read about this subject are Gender Pay Gap Persists and Among Doctors, Too, Women are Paid Less. A recent study has concluded that women who work full-time are paid 82% of what men are paid, and that women are paid less in every occupation except bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. There are several reasons for this according to research such as their choice in college majors, number of hours they work, and occupation; engineering and computer science are more male dominated jobs, unlike social sciences and education which are fields women typically enter. Men are more likely to get paid more and are also more likely to negotiate their salaries. This article pushes women to get degrees in higher paying fields such as nursing or engineering.
ReplyDeleteAnother study finds, however, that even in these higher paying jobs women are still paid less than their male counterparts. A male doctor’s income is $200,000 or more and a women’s is about $168,000; this research has discovered that women tend to be in lower-paying specialties, work less hours, and hold fewer leadership positions. If you calculate this difference over a course of 30 years, based on gender solely, this could add up to a $350,000 difference. Studies show employers (of both genders) are more likely to hire a man as an unconscious bias. These preconceived notions are embedded into the heads of people and have to be overcome so that there is a fundamental notion of fairness between both genders.
The two articles I decided to read were "Gender Pay Gap Persists" and "Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than you Think".
ReplyDeleteLet's start with "Gender Pay Gap Persists". This article pulls its statistics from two separate sources, both of which said the gap was at about 82%. The article explains that women possibly make less pay due to their college major, occupation, and number of hour worked. The article makes the conclusion that, if two people (male and female), walked out of school with exactly the same credentials, then the male would make more at his job than the woman. However, sometimes woman aren't even aware they are making less because certain private-sector jobs do not release employee salaries. The article ends with a suggestion with stricter laws concerning equal pay.
The next article, "Gender Wage Gap May Be Smaller than you Think", suggests that the wage gap is increasingly getting smaller and smaller. This article suggests the wage gap between women and men is only 16.5% during the second quarter of 2011. The article makes the point to suggest the data and statistics behind the wage gap may be skewed by several different factors, such as a woman taking less pay but better health benefits to support her children with.
In the end, determining the wage gap, figuring out who is right or wrong, and screaming in each others faces is not the issue. What is the issue, however, is recognizing that a wage gap due to gender still does exist. Politicians need to stop bickering over the statistics, most of which are not reliable, and just try to solve the problem at hand. While the politicians and business owners fight, the woman are just being pushed aside. They become political agendas, and are no longer considered as real people with actual needs.
I read the articles "Gender pay gap persists" and "Closing The Gender Wage Gap Would Create 'Huge' Economic Stimulus, Economists Say." These two articles explained the significant gap between and man and woman's pay check. When being compared, a man and woman with the same degree, same experience, and same job... it was shown that the woman was paid 7% less than her male co-worker. Many believe gender inequality may play a large role in this discomforting statistic.
ReplyDeleteTo help ease this gap, the second article suggested a plan called, "The Paycheck Fairness Act", sponsored by Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Rosa DeLauro. This act is intended to require employers who are paying women less than men for equivalent work to cite real and legitimate reasons for the pay inequality. If this act was passed, the gap would close resulting in U.S. economy to grow by at least three to four percentage points, according to economist Heidi Hartmann's research.I feel not only is it fair for women to paid equally, but based on research it is beneficial to all parties. So why not just treat both genders equally and give workers a salary they deserve, not based off of sex.
The article I read was "Among Doctors, Too, Women are Paid Less." I decided to read this specific article because I plan on pursuing medicine as my future career so I was interested to know why women are being paid less in the medical field. It talked about that when hiring men and women in hospitals, employers of both sexes prefer to pick men. It said that women are less likely to be aggressive to want to negotiate raises than males. Also it said that women are less likely to work in higher paying specialties and that men worked longer hours. I guess a reason for this might be that some women have a family to tend to at home and decide to not work extremely long hours to be able to go home in time to meet with their family and children and take care of them. This I feel is a modern day problem, because there will never be enough hours in the day for a women to have a perfectly balanced life between her job and family. The article also said that the gap between men and women's salary was around $12,000. It is also difficult for the physicians to know whether or not they are being paid equally like their male or female counterparts because many institutions do not have a strict guideline on how to determine a person's pay, but that men and women will be paid for the work they are doing.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction to this is that the numbers probably turn out less for women because women do tend to have the responsibility of having to take care of the home and have to dedicate their time to do so. Therefore, women find themselves in a problem having to make time for the pain-staking career and also having to take care of their children. It is a very complicated manner but I do believe that each female doctor should be paid a certain value for their time at work, because at the end of the day, they do the same work as a male doctor.
I read the two articles "Gender Pay Gap Persists" from USA Today and the New York Times article, "Among Doctors, Too, Women Are Payed Less". The New York Times article started out by saying that female doctors make approximately $12,000 less per year than male doctors do. Researchers were shocked by this information and someone explained that department heads feel that they're absolutely immune to pervasive biases, when in reality they actually aren't. The USA Today article went on to explain that women on average earn 18% less than what their male counterparts earn. The article also mentioned that women DO get equal pay in jobs like bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. I think that totally makes sense because they have their eyes on the finances of the companies more often than women who do something else. Usually, the women don't really know that they're earning much less than their male counterparts and for some people, ignorance is bliss.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely hate the fact that women are paid less than men. I disagree with the New York Times article when they say that women are more hesitant; I know many women who are sure about themselves and seem to become even more sure of themselves if a man steps into the room. I feel that to improve this gap, it would be extremely complicated; we could always go on strike, but we see how well THAT works out, or we can always walk in and demand higher wages. Even though that's much easier said than done, please also remember that women are moving up in the world, and soon when women are in charge of how much everyone gets paid, we will most likely see a nice balance.
I read the articles "Gender Pay Gap Persists" and "Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than You Think." The first article tries to explain the gender wage gap as a result of the college majors, occupations, and hours women choose to work in contrast to those of men. The trend apparently shows women majoring in careers like education and social sciences, which tend to pay less than the more technical ones like engineering and computer science that men tend to study. The second article also justified the difference in wages between men and women by attesting it to the increased presence of men in higher paying professions. In "Gender Pay Gap Persists," the article didn’t suggest an improvement in the gap, mainly highlighting the trials that women face in the workplace. In "Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than You Think," the writer suggests that there has been a major improvement in the gender wage gap over the past 22 years. However, the writer also says that the median wage values calculated would have been more accurately measured based on the hourly pay rate, which they had not been.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the idea that the gap is only attributed to the different career paths men and women choose to take. Even within the same career fields, women are often paid less for doing the same exact job as a man in her position. The excuse of women choosing family life over work is also shady to me, especially because a woman raising a family literally needs a good, solid salary to raise her family on. This is where the feminization of poverty stems from; some single mothers have a harder time making ends meet simply because they get paid less than men, and this wage discrimination has followed women for hundreds of years. On the more positive side, I found one author's suggestion interesting; he suggests that women may choose lower-paying jobs or careers if they come with better benefits, like health insurance or flexible work hours. Although I hate to play into stereotypes, women generally end up rearing the children within a family, and I believe that it'd be likely for a woman to pick a job based on benefits other than a high salary. Still, that doesn't justify women and men in the same posts making different earnings. Women may be able to improve the wage gap if they become confident in asking for wages or take cases of outright wage injustice to court. Only when women begin standing up for their rights in the workplace will old prejudices begin to crumble.
The two articles I choose to research on where "Gender Pay Gap Persists" and "Among Doctors, Too, WOmen are Paid Less." Both articles focused on the explanation that women are less likely to negotiate in the work field on their pay. Although "Among Doctors, Too, Women are Paid Less" the writer says that due to this factor women are seeing a lower percentage in pay wages then men, "Gender Pay Gap Persists" says that when women actually do do this they are usually penalized, so what is there to do? Another reason for this difference given by "Gender Pay Gap Persists" was the choice in women's majors. The article indicates that most women tend to study low paying careers and should join higher paying fields like medical. This was probably the information that most stood out to me because of the fact that my second article focused on the gap in medical field working women. Although both articles did not say directly if the gap was increasing or not, I do agree with most information posted in each reading. The only aspect I did not agree on was that of which women should choose higher paying careers and that a reason for the gap is that women are not as willing to negotiate. I think that women shouldn't need to do anything for an injustice in their pay. Whether or not their job is looked at as prestigious or not, at the end of the day if someone is hiring them to do the job they are obviously doing just as well as men are and deserve to be payed just as well as they are.
ReplyDeleteI chose to read "The Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap" and "Gender Wage Gap may be smaller than many think". TIME magazine's article explains that this comes as a byproduct of unbalanced professional opportunities, educational prospects and deeply-entrenched societal norms. The Wall Street Journal's article believes it is very likely affected by the disparity of men in higher paying professions. The two articles differ in the opinion of improvement. TIME suggests there is no improvement or chance for women to increase their pay unless they increase their work to surpass men. WSJ suggests, however that there is a much smaller gap, due to women receiving usually larger benefits than men. I liked TIME's article much better since it was more detailed and better explained all aspects of this subject. WSJ suggests that the idea is too generalized and does not take all benefit and hourly pay wages into consideration therefore not being accurate enough. I believe that the problem will not be reversed until women are able to prove themselves completely equal by having the same education, work ethic and assertive attitude that men possess. I believe women should communicate more with their employers about their abilities and show that they work hard enough to be paid an equal amount, with equal benefits.
ReplyDeleteI read the articles "Gender Pay Gap Persists" and "The Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap. Both articles focus on the issue that women are still discriminated against in the work world, and try to figure out why this is. Both articles discussed the fact that women are less likely to speak up to their bosses. Men are more likely to be persistent on getting a raise, or a higher position. Women aren't as likely to be as vocal on these issues. Even though women aren't perfectly equal to men in the workforce, they are improving tremendously. In the article "Gender Pay Gap Persists" the author discusses how women have made tremendous gains in education, employment, and earnings in the last 50 years. It is good to see that even though we aren't quite equal to men, we are defiantly on our way up there. "The Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap" goes into saying that women will not ever fully be able to be on the same level as men in their work, until they start to have the same work ethics as men do. Women don't usually work as long as men do, and take more time off to spend time with their families. With these different approaches taking place, men and women can never really be on the same level in their workplace. Even though men and women are not fully equal in their jobs yet, women keep getting closer and closer to their goal of being looked at with just as much respect as a man is looked at.
ReplyDeletethe two articles i read were "Don't blame discrimination for the Gender wage gap" and "the gender wage gap persists" I chose these two articles because the would give me two different views on this issue. In "Gender wage gap persists" the explanation for the gap was the college majors women pick, occupation, the number of hours women work, discrimination, and negotiating salaries. The article states that women usually enter lower paying fields than men, and are less likely to negotiate their salaries. This article does mention the improvement in the gap but it does not mention whether or not it will become smaller in the future. it does this because this article is focusing on not only the technical factors but is also focusing on discrimination and that people have to do something about it if we eant to see a change. In "Don't blame discrimination for the gender wage gap" the explanations for the wage gap were that women were more likely to ge tpart-time jobs, more likely to enter lower paying fields , are more likely to not negotaite salaries , and due to their lifestyle choices. This article does not mention the improvement in the gap and it does not suggest it for the future. It says instead that the tiny percent that is left after taking many factors into account is the lifestyle choices of women and that social conditions are unlikely to change in the near future. I agree mostly with "Don't blasme discrimination for the gender wage gap" because i believe that while there is still a small percent of discrimination going on, its mainly just technical reasons why women don't get paid as much as men. I believe that its mostly based on womens choices and not on discrimination. The point that stood out to me the most wasthat women choose lower paing careers than men. This stood out because i thought that women were entering higher paying field just as often as men were. To improve the gap i believe women need to start negotiating more for pay.
ReplyDeleteI decided to read the articles "The Gender Pay Gap by Industry" in the NY Times and 'The Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than you Think" in the Wall Street Journal. The first article in the NY Times focused on the differences of gender pay in relation to the kind of job one has. In some jobs the gap was smaller than others, and women made very close to what men make. In other industries the gap is very large and there is an extreme difference in the earnings. The other article about the gap becoming smaller, shows how through time we have been getting closer and closer to a man's income. This article also provided reasons why the gap may be bigger or smaller depending on the person or job. Both of these articles provide a little light for the equality of pay, In the "Gender Pay gap by Industry" in some jobs with very little female employees women are paid almost equal to what men get paid. In "the gender wage gap" the article states that women's salary is almost equal but some women choose to have a lower salary and better benefits and flexible schedule if they have a family. Because they choose these things their salary is lower, which makes the gap bigger. Things like education and work benefits though make the gap even smaller between men and women.
ReplyDeleteBoth articles I thought were very interesting. In the "Gender Pay Gap by Industry" the graph showed how in most jobs women earn 70-80% of what men do. This article also stated that less women in the industry resulted in the more equal pay they make. This kind of surprised me because in an industry like construction women make 92% of what men make. This is good because it is getting closer to an equal percentage but in this industry all women definitely cannot do all the physical labor that men do. I did not think this percentage would be so close because I feel that women are sometimes limited because of their stature. The article "Gender Wage Gap may be Smaller" I thought was surprising as well because it stated that women would sacrfice the lower income for better benefits and a more flexible schedule because of her family. This I still felt was part of gender stereotypes, because even though the women in the family is working she is taking the lower salary to care more for the family. She still shows the idea that the women should stay home and care for the family and that the man should bring home the big salary.
Women have definitely come a long way in making the gender gap of incomes smaller. Evidence is shown in the article from the Wall St. Journal. It is nice to see that this is happening. I believe if women keep working hard that we will eventually get an equal wage like men. It will take time but we keep inching closer and closer and pretty soon it will be equal.
One of the ridiculous explanations for the wage gap in the article was that women do not negotiate and that is why they do not get more money because they will most likely just take what they get. I know for a fact that if that was me and I found out that a male was making more than I was I would not just sit back and let that happen, instead I would negotiate to make just as much or even more. One of the ways the articles suggested that it could be improved is by women studying higher majors in college such as nursing. I disagree with this because I do not think I should be told what job I should do. Everyone should be paid equality regardless of how prestigious the job is seen as. Each job should have one salary and that is it. Not one for men and one for women, we fought too hard for our rights then to let men have a problem with women being higher than them. If it is such a concern to them then they should work harder. I also disagree completely with the comments of both articles. We all know that there is going to be a gap in salary for a woman and man. However, I do not think that is right because mostly likely you will get a harder working woman than man. Women tend to be more organized, hardworking individuals. Men on the other hand are seen as sloppy, laid back workers. It should not be judged on sex but instead on how hard the person works. I think that women should not settle for the money that is offered to them. Instead they should have a number in their heads while looking for jobs and not settle for anything less. It has to be reasonable of course but not let a man make more money than a woman. If we are all going to be doing the same work how does it make any sense for a man to make more?
ReplyDeleteThe two articles I chose to read were "Gender Wage Gap May Be Smaller Than Many Think" in the Wall Street Journal and "Among Doctors, Too, Are Paid Less" from the NY Times. In the Wall Street Journal article one reason offered for the wage gap is that after having children many women prefer jobs that have a lower pay but better benefits- either better health-care coverage or other perks like a more flexible schedule. I know that many women are concerned with raising a family which may contribute to their desire for flexible working hours and benefits. This article claims that to accurately record data, authors note that they should measure the gap between hourly earnings. The article in the Times suggested that the reasons for the wage gap are being in lower-paying specialties, having fewer publications, working fewer hours and hold fewer administrative leadership positions. Also employers of both genders are more likely to hire a man, and women are less aggressive when asking for a raise. Dr. Jasgi believes that greater transparency would decrease and even eliminate the income differences. You need to standardize the process of compensation and career advancement- pay them what their work is worth regardless of their gender.
ReplyDeleteI think that these articles while true at the time, will soon be very incorrect. I think that women are on their way up in the work force. Women are learning to embrace their femininity and compete with men. One fact that stood out to me was that calculated over the course of a 30-year career, the income gap based on sex alone amounted to over $350,000. This is crazy! This income gap can pay for a child's college tuition, and he is able to do this just because of his gender! This is so unfair! I also liked how in the Times Article how it was pointed out by a male doctor that regardless of your gender, you should be paid for what your work is worth. I think that women need to look at these statistics and gain a desire to better compete with men. I think that we are on our way to closing up this gap!
The articles I read were, Gender pay gap persists and among doctors, too, Women are paid less. The articles reasoning for the lower pay towards women was that the worked less hours and didn’t argue or try to attempt to get a higher wage. The articles about the doctors wages does state that they believe there will be an improvement, although they don’t think that men and women will be paid equally in a short amount of time, it will be gradual. My reactions to these articles were really surprised. I knew women got paid less but I never thought it could be that much less. It gave me a heads up for what it’s really like and I think its something good to be aware of. I think women should get paid, as much as men because they can do the same work and do it just as well, so it’s only fair. I think women should be more confident and argue the wages they are given and ask for higher ones. I think often they will get it, and if they bring it to their boss’s attention that a male is making more than them at the same job, they might get more money.
ReplyDeleteThe two articles I read were "Gender Pay Gap by Industry" (NYTimes), and "Don't Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap" (Bloomberg). The first article, "Gender Pay Gap by Industry stated that women earn only 80 percent of what their male co-workers earned. The article also suggested that there is variation in earnings based on the industry. Some jobs, such as construction has a much smaller difference in pay as opposed to a job concerning financial activities. I think it is absurd that women would earn 80% of what a man does doing the same job, however I did notice that this article was in fact written by a woman. I feel that this woman may have some bias in saying that women are earning less when there are many factors she may not be considering when viewing these statistics. Education level, negotiation skills, and family obligations may conflict with work causing certain employees to earn less than others.
ReplyDeleteThe second article, " Don't Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap" immediately stated just from the title that they do not feel gender plays a role in the amount of income earned by an employee. When I began reading the article the first thing that stood out to me was the statement that "The pay gap is exaggerated, discrimination doesn’t drive it and it’s not clear that government can eliminate it -- or should even try." As soon as I read this I thought to myself...did a man write this article? And sure enough Ramesh Ponnuru was in fact a man. Before I finished the article the bias from being in a man's point of view stood out to me above all. This article supported their point by stating that different sources claim the gap is due to the fact that women generally work fewer hours than men. Also, a statement that I found very important regarding employers was that " 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, there is a clear need for stronger steps to help close the gender gap" immediately my first reaction was that discrimination was in fact involved. However the author's response to it got me thinking. The author stated that there are other factors that could explain this statistic and we cannot jump straight to saying it is caused by discrimination.
After reading both articles the one thing that stood out to be above all was the bias that the author had towards their own gender. I feel that the gender gap is based less on the statistics and is based more on the feminist movement. I do agree that a women should not earn less than men, however I do not feel any statistic would accurately portray whether or not discrimination took place since other favors are involved.
The first article I read was "Gender pay gap persists". This article says that on average women make only 82% of what their male peers make. The article suggests that maybe a reason why women make less money is because of the occupation they choose or their college degree. Another reason why women may make less is because they are working less hours due to the fact that they may have to take care of their family at home. This article does offer room for improvement with the gender pay gap because their are so many ways to fix this problem. It says that the employer can make sure he gives equal pay and that the government can enforce laws making sure that men and woman are paid equally. I also read "Gender wage gap may be smaller than you think". This article says that the the gender wage gap for 2011 was 16.5 %. It says that this is really small compared to 30% in 1989. The article suggests that after having children some women like to work jobs with smaller pay, but jobs who have good benefits, whereas men are still going along with their prestigious jobs. This article says that the gender wage gap is definatley improving.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction to these articles is that I actually think men and women are given equal pay. I think it is something that is very hard to calculate because their is so many components that play into it. For example: how many ours she works, what her college degree was, what her occupation is. I mean maybe men are getting payed higher because they dont have to go through pregnancy and motherhood so they are able to have a prestigious, full time job. I dont fully trust what the statistics say... and I definatley wouldnt consider it discrimination against women. I think that the women who feel that the gender wage gap is actually discrimination have every right to fight against it.. but it isn't something i would necessarily do.
I chose to read "Gender Pay Gap Persists" and "Gender Pay Gap by Industry." Both of these articles state that about 80-82% of women earn what men do. Obvious explanations of why women do not earn as much as men depend on their education level and their past experiences. On the other hand, when a man and woman both have the same credentials and are applying for a job, which one is employed? In most cases a man would be chosen. Managers and bosses feel as if women are sometimes too emotional to handle a job. They believe that they would let their feelings come in between their work. Also, women are noted to be to timid to ask for a raise, unlike their men competitors. Over the years, the gender gap has improved, but women still are not being paid fairly like they should be. Think about it for a second. In all honesty, what makes a woman so much different than a man concerning their work ethic when they both have similar education, experiences, credentials, etc.? I find it to be ridiculous that a man could be payed more for a job rather than a woman based on his gender. Also, it really bothered me to read in USA Today's article that women are more likely to work with education and social sciences when men work with engineering and computer sciences. Already in this statistic alone it shows the difference in pay just by what these genders major in college. Do you really think an excellent 1st grade Catholic school female teacher will be getting paid more than an average male engineer? Lastly, I feel as if the only way women will be able to improve their salaries compared to men is if they take a stand and unite. This, however, sounds easier said they done. If they are willing to, I believe that this will take a numerous amount of years and steps for this to happen.
ReplyDeleteI read the articles "Gender pay gap persists" and "Don't blame discrimination for gender pay gape". Right away I assumed that these two articles would have conflicts and opposing ideas from their titles. Gender pay gap persists sounds like in favor and agreeing with women but then the second article title sounds like it is in favor of men and disagrees with the gender pay gape. Well, although both articles did have similar information regarding women being paid less, they had opposing views on it. The first article was saying how it is unfair how women are being paid less and have a larger debt from college loans compared to men while the second article was saying how the pay age is exaggerated and that it cant really change. The article "gender pay gap persists" did include an improvement in the gap about how women have made tremendous gains in education, employment and earnings in the past 50 years. I have mixed feelings about the articles but I agree with the "gender pay gap persists" article more because I feel like that article is being honest and positive but also getting the truth out. In the article "don’t blame discrimination for gender pay gape" I didn't like how the author was making it sound like it was all women's fault and how men and employers should not be blamed for unequal pay to their workers. I like what the first article I read said about what women should do about the wage gap, it suggested how women can go for higher- paying majors such as nursing or math, and how the government needs to have a stronger enforcement or a new legislation on the problem.
ReplyDeleteThe first article I read was "The Gender Pay gap by Industry". After reading the second sentence to this, I was already mad. It states that women earned 80% of what men did back in 2009. This is ridiculous considering that women do just as good a job as men do, so we shouldn't be put down by being paid less. What I did think was really interesting about this article was seeing that in all job fields except Construction women are paid less than men. In the majority of the job fields, women earned 85% of what men earned but in construction, women earn a relatively close amount to what men earn. The second article I read was "Gender Wage Gap May be Smaller than You Think". I thought that after reading this one it did give a pretty reasonable explanation as to why women are paid less. The reason is because most women want a job that has better benefits so they can take care of their children. I thought that was pretty understandable, but I still don't get why women who have the same job as men are paid less. My reaction to both these articles was very different. When reading the first article, I got really angry at the fact that women are paid significantly less than men are. When reading the second article I choose, I did feel as though it gave a better explanation as to why this occurs and even though I don't agree with it I still feel it was helpful.
ReplyDeleteThe first article I read was "Gender Pay Gap Persists." To explain the gender pay gap, the article said that men often choose different majors, more prestigious occupations, and longer hours. For those women who do the same work and have the same credentials as men, the wage gap is slightly less, but still existent. This one may be due to women choosing not to negotiate their salaries. The article does say that there has been a "tremendous" increase in the wage gap in the past 50 years, but mentions nothing as of late. I think that I agree with the reasoning behind this article, because while some companies may discriminate and offer men higher wages, some blame must be put on the fact that women choose lower paying careers or fewer hours. But I still think that if the same hours are being put into the same job, it is completely wrong to discriminate like this. The second article I read, "Don't Blame Discrimination for the Wage Gap," was similar: it said that women work fewer hours than men, but there is little difference in pay between men and women with "similar family roles." It also said that women have gaps in their employment history and a lack of negotiation for wages. To improve the wage gap, the article suggests that in order to fix the wage gap, boys should be raised to expect to do more housework, and girls should be encouraged to enter more lucrative majors. I agree with this article as well, because its reasoning and statistics make sense. I think that in order to fix the wage problem, we should follow these articles' advice: Women should choose different majors, men and women should split domestic responsibilities equally, and women should take initiative in asking for higher wages. But, I think that these changes are a group effort that should be supported by men in order to completely remove the wage gap.
ReplyDeleteI read the articles “Gender Gap Pay persists” and “Among Doctors, too, Women are paid less”. Both of these articles show that the gender gap pay still exists, and even in medical fields. Women are looked down upon and looked at less confident than men are. It shows that women get paid less for several reasons including their college majors, occupation and the number of hours they work. In comparison they found that women still earned about 7% less than their male counterparts. Given their similarities, this pay gap is unexplained, and gender discrimination is one potential factor. The article talking about how woman who are doctors are payed less does not suggest and improvement in the gap. The women were looked at as not confident and with hesitant replies. The men basically make them look like amateurs. Women always fell behind the men because they lack “negotiation skills”. I really do not agree with these articles because there are many people in health professions in general. Women and men could be doing the same job as a doctor and they are not getting the same pay. This is not fair for women. What they want is for women could pick higher-paying majors, such as nursing, computer science, math, science and engineering. Women are just as capable as men. In my eyes, if that doctor who is a woman got the job position, she clearly has a similar and good education compared to a man. All of these gender stereotypes for doctors bother me! I believe that women should present their confidence more in order to show men what we are all capable of. We should all be treated equally and someone in the same profession should get the same pay as men. Women could negotiate their pay or get degrees with higher paying salaries.
ReplyDeleteThe two articles that I chose to read were " Gender Pay Gap Persists" and " Among Doctors, too, Women are Plaid Less". The first article explains that women are "...less likely to negotiate for higher salaries, and other studies have shown that women who do negotiate are perceived differently than men and may be penalized". Even if women try to stand their ground, what else is there to do because they continue to get discriminated against regardless? I believe that this is so unfair and biased. This article also states that women are majoring in lower-paying fields such as education and social sciences, while men typically major in engineering and computer science. But, I strongly believe that this will in fact change because a numerous amount of women are deciding to go into more prestigious occupations for reasons regarding pay and power. While in this article, it says how women should enter into nursing, computer science, math, science and engineering, "Among Doctors, too, Women are Paid Less" explains that although people may think that one of these careers would have equal pay, they are certainly wrong. These points contrast with each other, but I am hopeful that women will unite to close the wage gap between the genders. I myself want to do something in the medical field, and after researching these articles I was extremely disappointed and annoyed. Women have come far in gender equality, but there is a long way still go unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteI read through the two stories about the gender gap being smaller or less exaggerated than people may think, and I don't know- it makes sense that the gap would be caused by discrimination, and I think at this point it's easy for us to blame things like this on the fact we're women, being tempered to the fact we have to try harder than the average male.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, however, I also think a lot of the gap does have to do with the different career paths men take, or like in the video we saw, women may work an hour less here and there- that's not to show anything against our character, but it does sort of speak to the truth that we, in this day and age, often tend to jump on the "is it because I'm a girl?" reasoning. I think it's not entirely the men's fault to blame- just yesterday I was talking with a guy friend of mine about the idea of reverse sexism being equated to extreme feminism. It's unfair for us to blame guys for everything, when there are things we do that we have to learn how to, well, not do. It's like we discussed yesterday, being more timid to ask for a raise, or being unafraid to say when we think we've gone above and beyond for something. It's in our nature to act this way, and yes, for us it might take a bit more to overcome this, but by no means does that mean there's a vendetta against women in the workplace, or at least as large of one as people seem to think.
I chose to read the following two articles:
ReplyDeleteThe Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap
Gender Wage Gap May Be Smaller Than Many Think
The first article explained that among men and female stockbrokers, women were given the inferior, less important, accounts.
This unfair practice leads to "lower returns and smaller commissions" for women. Men, on the other hand, earn more because they are assigned important accounts. The second article that I read, however, focuses on the gradually shrinking gender gap thought the years. The writer, Conor Dougherty, takes into account education and work benefits to portray a more accurate idea of the gender gap. He also believes that including hourly earnings in that gap "graph,"could also affect the size of the gender gap.
In The Vicious Cycle of the Gender Pay Gap, the author of the article suggests the the women's earnings have increased 54% over 15 years, which is a significant percentage. Unfortunately, men are still the highest paid in sales positions. Conor Dougherty shows that in 2011, the gap between men and women's earnings was 16.5%. This percentage is evidently much smaller than the larger 30% from 1989. This article definitely shows an improvement, however small, in the gap.
I agree with both articles because they both make really good arguments. I agree that there are many different factors that can come into play when attempting to determine a gender gap in salary. While women have still not reached an "equal ground" with men concerning their earnings, they are gradually inching toward equality.
I think that women should be more outgoing and ambitious in their goals in order to be as successful and assertive as their male counterparts. Women must work very hard to achieve their wishes of being paid as much as men. The attitude that women have towards a goal is very important in improving the wage gap.
Reaction to CNBC Interview:
I noticed that there are various causes for the gender inequality found in the workplace. Things such as a woman's lifestyle choice could greatly impact the decisions she makes relating to her job. Often, women want to both be successful in their jobs, but would also like to have a family and be there for them as much as they can.
I chose to read:
ReplyDeleteDon't Blame Discrimination for Gender Wage Gap
Among Doctors, Too, Women Are Paid Less
I picked these two articles because they were completely opposite opinions. I have heard both sides of the argument and it was nice to see both opinions published in prestigious articles. In the first article, the author blames the circumstances for the "gap" that everyone is talking about. He says that women choose to pick lower paying careers and usually spend less time working. I see his point, which kills me because I'm usually for women being paid more (call me biased). Should women be compensated for time off when taking care of a newborn, like in Europe according to the interview. He also says that women are less likely to bargain for a raise. I could see this as being true because I know at work I hate trying to bring up things like that with my boss. On the completely other end of the equation is the other article. This author says that even if you take out all of these factors like work time and job choice there is still a gap. She says woman don't bargain because they are discriminated against. This kind of reminded me of the chicken and the egg idea. The first author said that woman are afraid to bargain, hence the discrimination and the second author says that men discriminate against women, which is why women are afraid to bargain. Overall I appreciated both ideas and it helped provide more perspective.
This also taught me to never trust statistics.
The first article I read said how women are increasing there education and prestige tremendously in the past few years, but men still make more money than women. Women typically only make 82 percent of what men do. It says that women make less in every single occupation besides bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. Experts say women earn less because of education and occupation, but in some cases men and women have the same exact job and education so the gap is unexplained. I was not surprised by this article because I know that women make less than men, but I just do not understand how this can be legal in the 21st century. I think women need to do something about this. Nothing is ever going to change if we just let this slide. It goes against all the beliefs our country was built on and also goes against the constitution "all men (women) are created equal"
ReplyDeleteThe second article I read contradicted the first article by saying that the wage gap is not that much. It says that it has been improving a lot of the past few years. It says that the reason for the gap is because when women have children they would prefer better benefits than a higher paying job. I think that it is good that the gap is shrinking, but there is still a lot more to do to make things equal.
The few reasons stated about why there is such a gender wage gap is because either women study to be apart of a profession that is not paid highly or women are too timid to ask for a raise.The articles suggest that if women study to become apart of higher paying job that the gender wage gap would not be so different. I agree this could help the gap, but women shouldn't have to try and become a brain surgeon or ceo to have a higher wage. I think women and men in lower paying jobs have the man paid higher too. If women ask for a raise or if bosses pay there employees fairly and equally then the gender wage gap would be better.
ReplyDeleteThat part of the article in usa today about how women should try to aim for the higher paying jobs really stuck out to me. That is not the only solution and it is not the only reason to why there is a gap in wages. Women should just try to be the best they can be in their field of work and demand the raise that they deserve. I think women should not feel timid or overpowered by their bosses. You obviously got hired because your company or boss thought you were well suited for the job you are in, and if you help out the company you deserve that raise. Even that higher wage, if you are feeling up to asking that.
I read the first and the third article about how the gender wage gap is still persistent in society and also how there is a big gap between male and female doctors salaries. According to the first article, I read about how it is less likely to see a women negotiate a salary than a male. If there is that slim chance that one does negotiate, they are not treated the same as males and some even get penalized. I think that this is like this because as women, for the most part, we settle for what we are given and not looking to cause problems. Because most of us are ok with settling, people get used to that and are caught by surprise when there are a few women who do not settle. I am still shocked to see that in this day in age we are still earning 82% of what our male peers are earning. I would have assumed that it was a lot closer than that by now. Another reason they said that Women were getting paid less is because of our major and job choices. A lot of women go into social work with majors in psychology or become and elementary school teacher where they know they succeed and are not willing to raise the bar for themselves and try out computer engineering or a nurses degree which then would give better pay. I think that in order to end this gender gap, Women need to recognize their rights and to not just settle with what we are given. We need to fight for what we deserve.
ReplyDeleteI took me by surprise that Women and Male doctors in the same fields had a gender gap. In one year, male doctors are getting paid over 12,000 dollars more than the women that they work with. What I question most is, who makes up the salaries? What makes a male qualified? Did he have more credits or experience? I think in a job like this which requires so much education and practice, all people who have the same experience and college degrees should get paid the same amount of money. I wonder if a women who owns her own practice would get paid the same amount of money as a man who owns his own. I am not sure on how this problem can be fixed because there is only so much we can do. I just hope that by the time I am getting a job the gender gap is almost gone!
( i dont know if this says my name cause I am on a different computer but it is justine) ;)