Wage Disparity Among the Sexes
Men and women are different. They have structural differences, their abilities are different, and their emotional temperance’s are different. But if you are going to hire a man and a woman to perform the same job then why should she make less? Why should women have to work harder and longer to bring home the same amount of pay? The problem is they should not. If the same task is performed and the same amount of work is done, a woman should not make less than a male peer. Nevertheless, they do.
Women on average earn 75.5 cents to a man’s dollar (Longley, 2004). This disparity amongst the genders was at a decline until it actually began to widen again in 2012 where a woman earned 77% of what a man earned, which was down from 77.5 in 2011 (Khimm, 2013). With this setback, it will be unlikely that women will be able to touch the glass ceiling any time soon. The biggest problem is to look at why women earn less and what factors affect them more than their male counterparts.
Logical Thinking
Some researchers suggest that there is an underlying reason women make less, even in the same job. The reason they assert has to do with what they call “firm specific skills” (Vermeulen, 2011). This concept is defined by the idea that when a man works for a firm, he develops specific skills that are directly related to that firm’s business (Vermeulen, 2011). In essence, he has access to and can manage the important ins and outs of the firms customers, products or services, and essentially the face of the company. This makes the man irreplaceable if he is doing his job well.
Technically a woman could also create this skill set, but the worry by the firm is that women tend to leave jobs to raise families and take off more time from work (Vermeulen, 2011). This cuts into their building of “firm specific skills” because they are not present in the workforce long enough and are not in the job often enough. A woman is just not as marketable to the firm if they are not present. The logic then is to give the man more money and bonuses so that he will feel less compelled to stray from the company. (Vermeulen, 2011). This concept has merit in the concern of longevity within a company, but should it be allowed to happen? This would only discourage women from working for the companies that have shown this is how they run their business.
Why Women Count
Part of the benefit of having women in an organization at equal positions of power as men would be the ability to have different views and ideas that a man would not think of. Each person creates their future by the actions that have happened in their past. Women tend to be more emotionally driven than men are, so their ideas would stem from places that feel right. They can also give suggestions based on what they think other women’s needs would be. This is especially helpful when trying to create products that target a specific audience. Women have only bolstered the workforce in positive ways, but it was not always viewed as such.
Many women fill jobs that are minimum wage or part time. Women want to work, but men and companies have not always been happy to have them. During World War II, women would be required to fill the tedious and poorly paid jobs so that men could be freed up to take the skilled and better paying jobs, or to be able to join the military (Rosie theRiveter, n.d.). Even when women were able to be hired into traditionally male jobs, men and male-controlled unions were suspicious of them (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.). Many companies felt women’s needs were secondary to men and did not give them much attention (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.).
After the war, it only got worse and women were forced back into a home setting by employers laying them off, or made them step down into traditional female jobs (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.). This did not stop women though and the surge of women entering the workforce has been on the rise since the 1950’s. Unfortunately, it does not seem to matter how skilled a woman is or how much she knows about the job, she will always make less money.
Final Thoughts
While women may not be able to make the same as men, there is much to be said about the direction America is headed. Women have made great strides to close the gap of wage disparity. The more women are hired into CEO and director positions, the more they can change the company’s way of thinking about the working woman. Since there is still a wage disparity amongst men of different races, it will be some time before women can fully assert themselves as the equal. Hopefully, future generations will keep trying to make the workforce an equal opportunity for all women.
Logical Thinking
Some researchers suggest that there is an underlying reason women make less, even in the same job. The reason they assert has to do with what they call “firm specific skills” (Vermeulen, 2011). This concept is defined by the idea that when a man works for a firm, he develops specific skills that are directly related to that firm’s business (Vermeulen, 2011). In essence, he has access to and can manage the important ins and outs of the firms customers, products or services, and essentially the face of the company. This makes the man irreplaceable if he is doing his job well.
Technically a woman could also create this skill set, but the worry by the firm is that women tend to leave jobs to raise families and take off more time from work (Vermeulen, 2011). This cuts into their building of “firm specific skills” because they are not present in the workforce long enough and are not in the job often enough. A woman is just not as marketable to the firm if they are not present. The logic then is to give the man more money and bonuses so that he will feel less compelled to stray from the company. (Vermeulen, 2011). This concept has merit in the concern of longevity within a company, but should it be allowed to happen? This would only discourage women from working for the companies that have shown this is how they run their business.
Why Women Count
Part of the benefit of having women in an organization at equal positions of power as men would be the ability to have different views and ideas that a man would not think of. Each person creates their future by the actions that have happened in their past. Women tend to be more emotionally driven than men are, so their ideas would stem from places that feel right. They can also give suggestions based on what they think other women’s needs would be. This is especially helpful when trying to create products that target a specific audience. Women have only bolstered the workforce in positive ways, but it was not always viewed as such.
Many women fill jobs that are minimum wage or part time. Women want to work, but men and companies have not always been happy to have them. During World War II, women would be required to fill the tedious and poorly paid jobs so that men could be freed up to take the skilled and better paying jobs, or to be able to join the military (Rosie theRiveter, n.d.). Even when women were able to be hired into traditionally male jobs, men and male-controlled unions were suspicious of them (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.). Many companies felt women’s needs were secondary to men and did not give them much attention (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.).
After the war, it only got worse and women were forced back into a home setting by employers laying them off, or made them step down into traditional female jobs (Rosie the Riveter, n.d.). This did not stop women though and the surge of women entering the workforce has been on the rise since the 1950’s. Unfortunately, it does not seem to matter how skilled a woman is or how much she knows about the job, she will always make less money.
Final Thoughts
While women may not be able to make the same as men, there is much to be said about the direction America is headed. Women have made great strides to close the gap of wage disparity. The more women are hired into CEO and director positions, the more they can change the company’s way of thinking about the working woman. Since there is still a wage disparity amongst men of different races, it will be some time before women can fully assert themselves as the equal. Hopefully, future generations will keep trying to make the workforce an equal opportunity for all women.
Comments
Post a Comment