Exploring the Gender Pay Gap: How Politics and Inequality Play a Role - Essay Sample

Introduction

In the United States, the gender pay gap is defined as the ratio of male-to-female average or median depending on any kind of sources such as yearly earnings or hourly earnings among year-round or full-time workers. Also, the gender pay gap is referred to as the difference between female and male earnings in incomes expressed as the percentage earnings of the male which the females earn. Other findings define the gender pay gap as the basic median or average difference between men's and women's hourly earnings in salary or wage (Moghadam, 2016). Generally, in the United States, the income gap is as a result of the difference of causes such as discrimination of people in the hiring process, differences in education choices, discrimination of negotiations of salaries by various employers, differences in the opportunities held by women as well as men, differences in the payment of salaries to employees especially men as opposed to women, and differences present in related amounts like in work experience. In essence, there is a discussion concerning the portion of the gender pay gap that is currently present in the United States as well as other countries worldwide due to explicit discrimination because of gender (Waylen, 2010). Moreover, research findings claimed that approximately thirty percent of the wage gap in the United States is caused by gender discrimination and related issues, though other scholars and researchers suggest that the gender pay gap is mostly because of women's career choices as well as other related concerns.

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The case in question is relevant to the issues of inequality and politics because pay disparities have been present within the institutions and governments since then and have been in the talked about by various frameworks and theories derived from a complete sense of the wide range of politics, intellectual ideologies, and academic disciplines in the United States. The majority of these frameworks and theories were started from a logical point of view which accounts for the persistence and degree required to examine gender discrimination (Blau, & Kahn, 2006). The case is relevant to politics as well as inequality in the sense that females in the society have seen as dependents of their male counterparts and are working as the receivers of part incomes. The most significant logic surrounding this issue, making females receive lower wages is by the reasoning of their homemaker and family role as compared to men. Men in the society have been considered by organizations, state and national governments, and organizational trade unions as needing wages for a living (Viterna, & Fallon, 2008). While women's wages are in contrast as rarely compared to any concept of urgency or cost of being part and parcel of social reproduction.

(Gendering) Democratization (Paxton, Baldez)

According to Paxton and Baldez, representation and participation of women in polities dramatically vary between and within countries. The study of politics and gender seeks to understand, explain, and reveal gender disparities in power struggles across and within markets, states, as well as civil society (Paxton et al., 2006). Research studies have incorporated documenting significant gender inequalities in gender differences and political representation in any kind of political participation. However, feminist scholars have explored various means of gendered construction of security, citizenship, and democracy that is built on the male as a normal individual, hence silencing or excluding women's experiences.

The Goods of Democratic Institutions (Smith)

According to Adam Smith, democratic institutions of common good refers to a situation of what is beneficial and shared for most or all members of a particular community, or in other words what is achieved by active participation, collective action, and citizenship in the realm of public service and politics. This concept of the common good of democratic institutions significantly differs among many philosophical scholars in two ways; procedural and substantive (Smith, 2009). According to the perception of substantive, the common good means that anything shared by and is deemed beneficial to most or all members of the society; while procedural perceptions suggest that the outcome of the common good is achieved by collective and active participation as a form of a shared benefit or will.

From the above two define concepts; some analyses can be drawn to help address the case in question. For instance, the extent to which discrimination aspects play a vital role in analysis and explaining the gender pay gap is a somehow difficult task to quantify since there are several confounding and potential variables (Smith, 2009). Research findings suggest that the majority of the employees in the United States have reported consistently that they have found unexplained pay variances although after controlling measurable characteristics assumed to have impacts on earnings such as democratic institutions of common good and gender discrimination issues. Also, women are always seen to be like they are only able to work on part-time jobs although these jobs provide them with significant income avenues to sustain them meet their multiple living costs (Mandel, & Semyonov, 2014). Hence, there is a need for stronger and efficient legislative measures as well as other actions to be implemented by the labor institutions and other government agencies to ensure equitable pay in various workplaces in terms of gender equality and common suitable investments.

Based on the concepts mentioned above, several measures and undertakings need to be taken into consideration to solve the case in question by the United States' government and other relevant authorities. For instance, in an ideal world, there has been a mechanism of promotion of equality in payment for female as well as other disadvantaged or disabled groups which involves general frameworks such as having in place minimum salary legislation for aspects of general policies (Moghadam, 2016). Also, having much of targeted policies in place that deal with particular challenges of inequality in payment related to job segregation as well as particular aspects of equity pay structure which would otherwise have an impact on the disadvantaged sex or any other related group help fix the problem in question. All these measures will help address the gender pay gap in the United States, taking into consideration the gender democratization aspects and the goods of democratic institutions.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, the gender pay gap in the United States, as well as other countries, is a longstanding approach and its cause is more complicated. Social norms and pressures affect gender roles and even can shape the kinds of career paths and occupations which women and men follow, and hence their respective level of pay (Kelly et al., 2001). In essence, the female is more probably as compared to men to work on part-time jobs as well as to take their time out from their respective career paths for private or family reasons.

References

Blau, F.D. and Kahn, L.M., 1992. The gender earnings gap: learning from international comparisons. The American Economic Review, 82(2), pp.533-538.

Blau, F.D. and Kahn, L.M., 1994. Rising wage inequality and the US gender gap. The American Economic Review, 84(2), pp.23-28.

Blau, F.D. and Kahn, L.M., 2006. The US gender pay gap in the 1990s: Slowing convergence. ILR Review, 60(1), pp.45-66.

Blau, F.D. and Kahn, L.M., 2007. The gender pay gap: Have women gone as far as they can?. Academy of Management Perspectives, 21(1), pp.7-23.

Kelly, R.M., Young, B., Bayes, J.H., Hawkesworth, M.E., Fall, Y., Gonzalez, L., Gupta, S., Hanochi, S., Mushakoji, K., Simms, M. and Sircar, A., 2001. Gender, globalization, and democratization. Rowman & Littlefield.

Mandel, H. and Semyonov, M., 2014. The gender pay gap and employment sector: Sources of earnings disparities in the United States, 1970-2010. Demography, 51(5), pp.1597-1618.

Moghadam, V.M., 2016. Democracy and Democratization. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, pp.1-6.

Paxton, P., Hughes, M.M. and Green, J.L., 2006. The international women's movement and women's political representation, 1893-2003. American Sociological Review, 71(6), pp.898-920.

Smith, G., 2009. Democratic innovations: Designing institutions for citizen participation. Cambridge University Press.

Viterna, J. and Fallon, K.M., 2008. Democratization, women's movements, and gender-equitable states: A framework for comparison. American Sociological Review, 73(4), pp.668-689.

Waylen, G., 2010. Democracy, Democratization, and Gender. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies.