The Differences Between Men and Women in Occupation and Salary free essay sample

The obtainment of a college degree is no less a symbol of monetary equality than jobs not requiring a college degree. In occupations that have 99. 9% of its employees with college educations’ women are continuously slighted. The percentage differences are also astonishing in female laden occupations. Men make more than women in just about every occupation. Women can have a higher percentage of college graduates and will persistently make less than men. In occupations ranging from Chef Executives to Farmers and Ranchers women are paid less. On some occasions women can make between $10,000-$20,000 less than men. There are plenty of occupations which are heavy with males and others which are laden with females. In some of the occupations that women are employed more numerously than men, the pay differences are incredible. For instance, when it comes to Elementary and Middle School Teachers women outnumber men by more than a million and they still make more than ,000 less. We will write a custom essay sample on The Differences Between Men and Women in Occupation and Salary or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page When it comes to Tire Builders, which is a male laden occupation, women make about $9,000 less. Females seem to get the short end of the salary stick in occupations laden with men in every occasion. It is very noticeable that women are discriminated against unfortunately. It seems to be safe to say that the difference in salary comes from decades of women in traditional roles. Women are slowly making progress and playing a constant game of â€Å"catch-up† to become economically equal with men. The main focus in my study will be to examine the economical comparisons of both men and women, the affects of this inequality in pay and ways to bridge the economical gap. 4 Review of the Literature I researched several articles that supported my thesis that women make less than men. Of the articles that I obtained, I discovered that the Equal Pay Act was established in 1963 but women are still economically inferior to men. According to the AFL-CIO (2005), nationwide, working families lose $200 billion of income annually to the wage gap. If women and men were paid equally the nation as a whole would benefit. The article â€Å"It’s Time for Working Women to Earn Equal Pay†, details the â€Å"cents on the dollar† that we’re shorted as a nation because of women earning less. Equal pay is a family issue according to the AFL-CIO (2005), and they maintain that family incomes rise and the whole family benefits as a result of equal pay. An article of note, was also the â€Å"40 years after Pay Equity Act, women still earn less than men†, I discovered that there is an Equal Pay Day which was Tuesday, April 19, 2005. According to the Coalition of Labor Union Women (2005), The National Committee on Pay Equity organizes this Day to raise awareness about unfair pay for women and people of color in America. What’s even more interesting is according to the Coalition of Labor Union of Women (2005), Tuesday symbolizes the day when women’s wages catch up to men’s wages from the previous week. The next question should be whether or not people are aware of the Equal Pay Day or the fact that it takes about a week for women’s wages to catch up to men’s. An Equal Pay Act has been in existence for 40 years yet it takes another week for women’s wages to catch up to men’s. It seems the wage differences aren’t that equal at all. Take the week that it takes for women’s wages to catch up to men’s and the fact that some women do work the same amount of 5 hours as men it seems as though there is no way for women to become economically equal any time soon. Burk (2005) states that even though the Equal Pay Act was passed more than 40 years ago, women working full time, year round, still make only 76 cents for every dollar that a man makes. Once again it is stated how the pay gap affects various aspects of everyday life for families. Burk (2005) mentions how the unequal income can be the difference in buying or renting a home, being able to send your kid to college and a decent retirement vs. penury in old age. However Burk (2005) also states the choices women make and how that makes a difference in their wages. Burk (2005) sarcastically posts the question, â€Å"Women just naturally like the jobs with lower pay or less risk? †. It obvious due to occupations such as working as a cashier at a convenience store or nursing, that women can have jobs that could possibly put them in harm’s way. Working in a convenience store can be dangerous late at night and working as nurse in an emergency unit can be extremely stressful. Even in these sorts of occupations women are still underpaid. A bill called the Fair Pay Act would stop discrimination in jobs that are equal in skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions, even if the actual work is dissimilar, states Burk (2005). Some, however may feel as though women who are not doing the same work should not be paid the same wage regardless of skill, effort or any other job responsibility and that would more than likely become an issue. With the Fair Pay Act, employers would have to release summary statistics on what they pay women and men, so workers would know where hey stood in the workforce, according to Burk (2005). 6 Burk (2005) also mentions the important point that workplaces that claim to favor fairness should be glad to take an honest look at their practices and correct disparities now. This is a prohibitively logical attribute, because workplaces should leap at the opportunity to submit to these practices if they are paying men and women equally. Burk (2005) states that women currently have to go through a long drawn out process to see if the are being paid discriminatively, but with the statistics readily available, this expensive process could be avoided. The Coalition of Labor Union Women (2005) poses the question, â€Å"Why are women paid less than men† and offers several answers. The Coalition of Labor Union Women (2005), states that women don’t have equal job opportunities, or an equal chance at promotions, training and apprenticeships as some of the factors contributing to the pay inequality. Unfortunately as long as these opportunities are not as available for women, men will always dominate the wage gap. I also found some intriguing ways in which pay inequality may be alleviated. Tischler (2005) brings forth the fact that the pay gap doesn’t really become such until family responsibilities come in to the picture. Tischler (2005) states that when the division of labor occurs, most of the child-rearing duties and family responsibilities become the woman’s because men take on the good-provider role. Tischler (2005) lists picking technology or hard sciences over the arts or social sciences, work more hours, more weeks, and more years, sign up for a job with bottom-line responsibility and finding a field that entails financial or emotional risk taking as some solutions to the gender wage gap. Tishler(2005) also states that men are more willing to work in more â€Å"crummy† 7 conditions, such as in the North Sea oil rigs and are more willing to locate to more â€Å"unsexy† places. Tischler (2005) states that BLS chart of 20 Occupations That Pay the Most, 9 were various kinds of engineering jobs. Meanwhile, only 10% of engineering managers are women, although the BLS reported that the wages of women who took high-tech jobs increased more than twice as fast as for their male counterparts (Tischler 2005). Theory and Hypothesis I believe my two variables relate to each other very well. Gender (which is one variable) and salary (which is the other variable), correlate because whether or not you are a male or a female can determine some lifestyle choices. In an occupation that has a severe pay difference, it can show as a whole how much a woman is being economically cheated. According to the AFL-CIO (2005), the average working woman will lose about $455,000 to unequal pay during her working life. Half a million dollars loss to unequal pay is appalling. Your gender should not be a determinant of how economically well you are going to live throughout your life. There are numerous reasons why gender and salary depend on each other. Whether or not a person is a man or woman can determine who is going to handle household duties, who is biologically able to carry a child and who is going to miss work due to carrying a child. When a woman is 9 months pregnant it is highly unlikely that she will be able to continue working if she is employed in a highly physical occupation such as Brickmason. However, this is not the man’s fault, it just happens to be an unavoidable way for women to work in a highly physical job. When there is a family unit, an 8 abundance of times it is the woman who stays home to take care of the children while the man earns a living. Hence, moneymaking opportunities are decreased. My hypothesis is that men are more likely than women to have higher incomes’ regardless of occupation. Using data that I obtained from the U. S. Census Bureau (1999), I will demonstrate that women are continuously economically inferior, even in female dominated occupations. Methods I went to the web address http://www. census. gov/hhes/income/earnings/earnings. html, provided by Dr. Jedlicka, and I clicked on the link for both sexes, followed by the link for males, and then the link for females and printed the data for all three. I observed five of the highest populated occupations for both males and females combined.