The Pay Gap Between Women and Their Male Counterparts - Research Paper

Introduction

The pay gap between women and their male counterparts is generally described as the gender pay difference. The latter is described as remuneration difference, average difference, amongst working women and men. There are two types of pay gaps; the adjusted and the unadjusted pay gap. The former refers to a type of pay gap that is caused by several factors like a number of hours worked, job experience, occupation chosen, among others. The unadjusted pay gap is the type of gap which this research paper focuses on, as it assumes that the work involved in by both men and women is not seasonal, but rather permanent every year (National Partnership.org, 2018). In the modern contemporary World, it is evident that women get paid fewer wages compared to their male counterparts. This has been an issue that has been researched to be caused by a majority of reasons that are addressed majorly in this paper. Heated controversial debates have existed that discuss the main causes of the gender pay gap. Discrimination, motherhood, unequal opportunities, among others, are some of the reasons proposed for unequal pay, which is a challenge facing many developing countries, also the United States of America.

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Over the years, many laws have been formulated which are aimed at reducing the gender wage gap. Some of these laws which will be later discussed in details include the Equal Pay Act and Law of Discrimination. These laws minimize the cases of discrimination in times of employment, for instance. However, there still exists pay gaps even today. Even if women are not discriminated in time of job employment, they apply for jobs that are low in wages compared to their male counterparts. As a result, the gender wage gap can be concluded to be further beyond the scope of discrimination(Aly, 2017). Despite the majority of reasons which are associated with the widely known gender wage gap, this paper mainly addresses discrimination and inequality of employment, as the main causes of gender discrimination.

Significance of the Study

The gender wage gap needs to be attended to asap. This is because it has become an alarming issue over the World especially for developing countries as previously mentioned. Development of any country is associated with both the male and the female workers, and therefore, the Equal Pay Act should be strictly followed to the letter to ensure women are motivated to look for jobs. Attainment of jobs by women would lead to increased standards of living for families which will eventually lead to the eradication of poverty, a major objective for any government, and finally leading to development. Motherhood is one of the causes that has led to unequal pay between men and women. It is virtually important that women don't undergo any extreme financial hits for simply being parents. As a result, this study is significant in ensuring that the gap in pay is highly reduced; hence female's pay is greatly raised to match that of the male workers.

The other alarming issue that advocates for equal pay are the deteriorating economy of the U.S. The economy of the U.S is unstable, and it requires stabilization. The latter can be achieved by raising the pay for women in the country. Household debts could also be highly reduced leading to delineated poverty scenarios in the United States of America. This proves how urgent this matter should be solved if, at all, development is needed in the United States or any other part of the World.

Research Question

The Law of Discrimination and the Equal Pay Act have been very significant in the reduction of the gender pay gap. However, the two laws have not succeeded in reducing the wage gap completely, prompting the research of a specific reason that can be described to cause the increasing gender wage gap. This research paper is aimed at finding out this reason and answer the question, "Is the pay gap between men and women a result of discrimination?"

Research Methodology

The gender wage gap is a wide topic and challenge that prompted me to gather more information about the issue, which is foreseen to end in a hundred years, if only efforts are put in the matter as from our recent time. For me to comprehend the subject more, I needed to collect core and significant information. The latter was enabled through my information gathering amongst my parents, their co-workers, and college students. The survey that I conducted was comprised of only fourteen people of which five were males and nine females. The number of females was elevated compared to that of the males since the gender wage gap affects mostly women. Four women were from the organization that my parents were working in, an organization that is non- profit. Two of the women from my parent's organization were human resource assistants, while the other two were human resource and training department directors respectively. The remaining four females were receptionists and college students, who belonged to the age bracket of between twenty-three and twenty-six. Two of the men were my father's co-workers and belonged in the age bracket of twenty-nine to thirty-four, and they were IT technicians. The last male was a sales associate and also specialized in talent acquisition. The information I was to acquire was very relevant in understanding the issue even more, to correctly identify the main causes of gender wage pay, which is the main objective of this study as mentioned previously. People opinions are the best in making the objective of this report fulfilled.

The main research methods used in this research included observations, interviews, and questionnaires. In the questionnaires, open-minded questions, and only one close minded question were asked to get information that would be of significance to the topic of research. Eight questions were asked in the questionnaire, and they mainly were inquiring about the number of hours that each person was working and why do they think the gender wage gap is an issue in the modern contemporary World. Also, agreement and disagreement questions were asked, not to mention their ages, sex and their types of jobs.

The methods that were used in this research can be validated by the type of information that they provided. The interviews and observations were recorded on the spot to prevent forgetting or biasing of the information. Therefore, it can be said that the information obtained from the instruments of research was valid, accurate and relevant to the conclusions that would be made in this report.

Literature Review

Major advancements over the years have seen the reduction of the gender wage gap. One of the advancements, as mentioned previously, was the development of the Equal Pay Act which was enacted in the year 1963. The Act requires fair and equal remunerations of male and female workers. Females account for half the World's task force, and they are the co- or sole breadwinners in most families. As a result, equal pay is only the minimum they could be given as a token of appreciation for being the pillars of most families. The law was signed by the 1963 President, John F Kennedy, and it championed for substantial jobs, rather than identical jobs (Kunze, 2017). The law is among the original anti-discrimination laws that were very keen on addressing the issue of wages regarding gender differences.

The law protects everyone regardless of their gender, race, ethnic backgrounds, among other factors which are mainly used in discrimination of people. For a person to raise a claim under this remarkable rule, one should prove that they are working with an opposite gender employee the same number of hours, performing the same work in the same place of business, but receive unequal wages (Raghu, 2018). The law can be tracked to have been successful in the first years of its enactment but over the years, its importance has dropped, and the pay gap is growing enormously. The law's success can be traced back to 1963 in the Brennan vs. Corning Glass Works. The company was sued for only hiring and paying men a substantial amount of wages for night shifts, while the wages of women were held back. The Supreme Court decided the case in favor of the women and the company had to change its ways and to hire if it desired to continue its operations within the United States of America.

According to past research carried out by Conley, the month of April of the year 2018 marked the Day of Equal Pay, which defines the period that a woman is supposed to work into the following year, as to be able to receive equal pay to that of men (2018). An additional of four months has to be worked by women to attain equal pay to their male counterparts. Conley further discussed that the period required to be worked by women who were from different ethnic backgrounds was even greater. For instance, for Latin women and Native Americans, the Equal Pay Day was to be recognized in September while the equal day of pay for half American and half black was August. Aside from the Equal Pay Day differences, there exist significan...