The wage gap exists. It is mainly between childless women and mothers, however. Women make 98?f what all men make IF they remain childless. (source - Independent Women's Forum) Of course, this shows that men can have children and it doesn't affect their pay. If women live lives like men do, they can pretty much do fine financially. Of course, they don't.
What can be done about this? Well, we should be fighting this problem from the perspective of parents. Of course, the people making less money are often women, but this is because they are parents, not strictly because they are women. There are still many perfectly legal family-unfriendly policies and laws: One woman was fired after refusing to take a huge amount of overtime weekday evenings - she was a single mom and had to care for her child. She offered to do the overtime on the weekend instead, but was fired anyway. The court found in favor of the company. Legally, there is no such animal as "family responsibilites".
If family obligations don't exist for men or for women, then there is no compelling reason to force companies to take this into account. Our best bet is to prove that kids do better with involved parents, and to shift the discussion to, "What obligation do companies have to let mothers and fathers be good parents?" One good start would be to give tax breaks to companies who offer a certain percent of part-time jobs.
The wage gap is mostly made up of individual choices for employment and hours worked. However, the American economy is still dependent on the free labor of mostly women.
Top execs and CEOs almost always have at-home wives, and they truly must. You can only get to the top in our society by depending on the voulenteer efforts of mainly women, and this is pretty lousy. We should not have a system that requires an at-home wife, or requires that one person take all the financial burden of parenting, while everyone else reaps the rewards. Parents need flextime and compensation for raising future American taxpayers.
EDIT: You are quite right that some companies DO practice discrimination. However, the bulk of the gap is due to choices. These choices are of course not made in a vacuum, and that is where the discussion should lie.
Answered By: ♥Ĵunỉþ€я♀ - 7/10/2007 |
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Because there isn't a significant wage gap.
lol
Answered By: . - 7/9/2007 |
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Most people feel it's only fair if men and women have the same options (choices) for work. And they do.
However, men and women (who are married) tend to make different choices. These choices result in different financial outcomes.
The wage gap is almost entirely based on the lifestyle choices women make. Those who chose to remain single and skip having children make as much money as men.
Capitalism rewards people based on level of effort and and time spent. Women, more so than men, tend to sacrifice work for family and thus tend to earn less based on their job selection and the amount of time they spend at work.
Women who remain childless earn about the same as men. All women have the choice to remain childless. But, most women unwilling to make that choice.
Women who earn the same as men are the ones who make the same lifestyle choices men tend to. And any woman has the option to make that choice. However, most prefer to chose family over money.
How much fairer can the playing field get?
EDIT:
In terms of a SOLUTION: EDUCATE women.
Make sure that women are informed that that their choices will dictate their income. That choosing to take time off work to have babies, care for children, or even their own medical concerns, over time, *will* have an impact on their future earnings. This information will enable them to make informed choices and decide what is important to them.
If women want to ensure that their income is equal to a man's, they need to work with their families to keep themselves free to pursue their careers as aggressively and spend as much time at work as do men. This, of course, involves sacrificing time with their children (which cannot ever be replaced); however, at least they will clearly understand the implications of their choices and make informed career decisions.
If they do, they will have the same results that a man would given the same choices.
Answered By: steve_sider98 - 7/9/2007 |
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Answered By: Mark - 7/9/2007 |
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This is number 1,063 on GWBs "TO DO" list. From what I hear, they're still on #3, which is establishing a Democracy in Iraq. Hang in there!
Answered By: Mr. Pickles - 7/9/2007 |
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I believe the wage gap is women make 70 cents to every dollar a male makes.
I understand the arguement that men and women should be paid fairly. I kind of agree with it. However your logic is truely flawed. First of all in a marridge the money is in theory shared. So who makes more of it does not change the way in which is spent.
Also equal wages does not necessarily mean women will be making more. If you were a business owner forced to pay equally the easiest way to ensure equality would be to devalue the male. In other words instead of making it 1 dollar for women and 1 dollar for a men to perform work, it would be 70 cents women and 70 cents men for the same task. It certainly is equal pay...
Also this statistic is a little skewed because most CEO's and high paying executives are men. Most of the worlds richest people are men.
Answered By: kcbf - 7/9/2007 |
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The "Wage Gap" is a trick of statistics. The actual gap when all other factors are considered is statiscially insignificant.
Besides, the Equal Pay Act has been law in the US since 1963. If there really is unequal pay in any company, the company can be sued. It happens, but not often.
Answered By: Rob B - 7/9/2007 |
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The gender gap is a fallacy. It's very rare for men and women who are doing equal jobs to be paid significantly different wages. When they calculate the "wage gap" they are not comparing similar jobs. They are including all jobs and wages. The fact is, there are more women who work lower paying jobs that men simply just don't work. And that is partly why the stats are skewed.
Answered By: Michael b - 7/9/2007 |
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This has been studied extensively. You should read Suze Orman and Walter Williams if you want to find out the reasons rather than continue to think it is some kind of male conspiracy.
The wage gap is largely imaginary in the first place. The wage gap really has to do with marriage. Married men do best and single men do worst. Single women do almost as well as married men. It has to do with family dynamics more than any social problem. You should not assume that because there is a wage gap it is unfair. Generally you are assuming that people with similar jobs do the same work, but this turns out not to be true. Wages generally follow productivity. Married men are the most productive, followed by single women. Single men are the least productive and the poorest paid. This is completely fair.
Answered By: Jeffrey P - 7/9/2007 |
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Ah, interesting question, but please do remember that this does take into consideration of women who are housewives and also an educations standpoint. Higher education seems to lean more towards men obtaining college and post-graduate degrees. It isn't that women get less money because they are a woman. A competitive company would look like crap if they did that and they also would not remain competitive if they cannot look past gender. And you have to remember, does fairly mean that it has to be the same? Many women I know have less rank in their positions as men do. It is not because women work bad or men are smarter or some crazy idea like that, but it is because men tend to be able to find a job that is good for them, and they always tend, or more often than women, notice how they can advance within a company. A woman tends to apply to a specific job, while a man applies for the ability for promotion. And it is globally understood that promotions tend to give the worker more money.
I think having a gender gap is just fine. I think it would be unfair to pay women more to catch up for the same quality of work. Also, many women take time off for having a baby, or two or twelve, or whatever the case, and that can slow down their career. It would be totally impractical to think that a woman should advance in her career if she has less experience than a man, however, if she doesn't take the time off and works as hard as a man, then she should have equal oppertunity.
Closing the gender gap isnt necessarally a good thing. It would mean that families with single incomes comming from the man would be worth less because the woman could make more for being a woman. Gender gap isnt a bad thing, unless you are comparing two or a small group of employees already within a position, but it does also breakdown to experience, education, and what they have done for the company.
I don't think the current system is saying that women make less because they are women. It is saying that women have more variables in their lives than men tend to, but this is not always true. It really has to be broken down case by case.
Answered By: Anthony G - 7/9/2007 |
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It seems like a lot of the people on here don't realize it, but the current statistic, 79cents to the man's dollar, is based on men and women in the exact same position with the *exact same education/experience*.
This is not a conspiracy. It is business, and it is wrong. Employers pay less to women because they can and because it makes them money. They pay less to women than to men even among recent college graduates (for the same position/education, again), largely citing the excuse that they *might* lose the woman's work due to maternity leave, etc. This is clear discrimination, but it's also the status quo.
Furthermore, one of the Supreme Court's recent decisions reinforced this discrimination. A woman had been receiving significantly less money for her work than her male peers for over many years, and she just recently discovered the discrepancy. The judges on the Supreme Court decided that the only actionable offense concerning discriminatory pay was at the point when the boss decided to pay the woman less (as opposed to the logical point in time, when she first discovered that pay was unequal...). After that, she has to bring up her complaints before 180 days pass, let's not even bother with years. Therefore, the woman was SOL.
Basically, this means that as long as an employer can hide the fact that pay is unequal for 180 days (and in the current workforce climate where discussion of salary among coworkers is very much frowned upon, how hard would this be to accomplish?), the employer is free to continue the discrimination as long as they wish.
What was that about already having achieved equality, again?
ETA: To Anthony G - Actually, women currently have a higher rate of matriculation from college than men, and the wage gap has actually factored in things like maternity leave: women actually make less than men as soon as they graduate, before any maternity leave, etc. is taken. Now what?
Answered By: Nisha - 7/9/2007 |
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