...eliminate the wage gap between males and females in the workforce. This paper will discuss current pay equity legislation. Federal legislation includes the Canadian Human Rights Act, the Equal Wages Guidelines, and the Canada Labour Code, Part III. Provincial legislation includes the Ontario Pay Equity Act. This paper will also cover a brief time line of the history of pay equity and who is actually covered by pay equity legislation. Lastly, this paper will discuss the gender wage gap and why it exists. Graphs from Statistics Canada will aid in demonstrating the current wage gap and the significant difference in pay for males and females. Has Pay Equity Legislation Worked? Men and women are different in many ways, physically, genetically and anatomically; however they are the same in that they are both human beings who have a right to fair and equal treatment. All throughout history women seem to have taken a back seat to their male counterparts, as women were not officially deemed persons until 1929 after a Supreme Court hearing, they had to struggle to get recognition in the workplace, and to this day are continually fighting for pay equity in the workplace. Pay equity is defined as “the principle that men and women should be compensated equally for work requiring comparable skills, responsibilities, and effort” (Pay Equity, n.d., para. 1). The goal of pay equity “is to stop discrimination related to the under-valuation of work traditionally performed by women” (Human Resources...
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...the wage differentials between men and women I thought it would be interesting to hypothesize that there is research to prove that the world is analyzing the facts on why men make more than women and what is attempting to be done to correct the outdated and long-standing issue. I hypothesize that although there is data showing that the wage difference between sexes has already began to decline there are many reasons why there is a wage differential besides the obvious that “men are superior”. The gap between earnings of male and female workers has declined significantly over the past 30 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 1979 median weekly earnings of full-time female workers were 63.5 percent of male workers' earnings, implying a gap of 36.5 percent. The earnings gap dropped to 30 percent in 1989 and to 23.7 percent in 1999. In the second quarter of 2011, the gap reached a low of 16.5 percent. (BLS) Despite the accuracy of these numbers, many researchers believe that the mere comparison of median weekly earnings of male and female workers (represented in graph 1) presents an incomplete picture. First, women are likely to work fewer hours than men, which would make a gap in weekly earnings between the two groups substantial even if their hourly wages are the same. Most economic studies of a gender gap use hourly wages instead of weekly earnings as a measure. Second, many other factors (such as education and labor force attachment) could affect wages. Research...
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...about throughout the decades is the pay gap between men and women. The pay gap began in the past and has continued to be a consistent problem throughout time. The issue of pay equity has been mentioned in multiple speeches in order to sway the public’s opinion on whether or not policy changes need to be made in workplaces across the country. As big as the publicity surrounding the pay gap between men and women is, researchers have found that the gender pay gap is not as wide as some people...
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...Gender Wage Gap Since 1964, women have only gained 18 cents on average in terms of equal pay. It is a battle that continues to be fought daily; countless court cases and proposals to enact legislation. The gender wage gap in the United States, unbeknownst to many, exists and is affecting nearly half of the workforce. While there has been progress, such as the Equal Pay Act of 1964 and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, women still only earn approximately 77 cents to a man’s dollar. There are many common excuses as to why the wage gap between men and women exists but several studies and extensive research reveal that women are simply paid less than their male counterparts working in the same position. Recent legislation has failed...
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...Factors Contributing To Pay Gaps in Australia Name: Institutional Affiliation: Introduction Factors that contribute to the pay gap in Australia and why the difference is more significant in some industry sectors than others. The labor market is composed participants who are basically men and women. The rewards of the labor market are wages. The concept of wages is complex and has to be considered critically by employers. One of the greatest concerns in the labor market has been the disparities in the mean income between men and women. Differences between wages received by participants in the labor market is measured by the gender pay gap. The differences arises due to various aspects that differ from one organization to the next (Cohen 2007). In Australia for example, the wages pay gap is computed on the basis of full-time weekly earnings excluding overtime and salary sacrificed pay. Currently, the wage pay gap in Australia stands at 17.5%. The gap has been fluctuating with small margins but the figure has remained unchanged overtime. Differences in income levels of men and women are, for this reason, an important economic and industrial aspect worth consideration. In order to address the disparities in the pay gaps, it is important to examine the possible reasons as to the existence of remuneration differences between men and women. Why does the difference exist? Well, the answer to such a query is often critical and complex. However, the real explanation is the fact...
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...GENDER WAGE GAP INTRODUCTION Nowadays there are a lot of women graduates from universities, master programs and colleges. Also some studies showed that women are doing better in school then men (Buchmann, 2006). So why are women still not getting paid equally as men? We see that the gap is getting narrower and narrower throughout the years. However, pay gap between men and women still exist. After World War II, women were paid 60% of what men paid. This situation got better in 2000s. Studies showed that in 2009, women earn 80% of what men earn after one year they graduate from college (Day and Hill, 2007). Even though women's level of education is getting higher throughout the years, this improvement is not enough to getting pay equally as men. Women are continuing to earn less than men on average, and the convergence is not enough to compensate the gap in the upcoming years. This paper focuses on the worldwide gender pay gap and it gives general insights about the issue. I will try to explain the reasons of the gender pay gap between men and women. At the first part, I will briefly look at the issue historically. I will try to explain the trends of pay gay throughout the years. I will analyze the gender wage gap starting from the post World War II period. At the second part, I will explain some theories and studies about the reasons of gender wage gap. Some theories attribute this situation to “gender-specific”...
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...preforming the same job duties day by day are not seeing a horizon in the equality of wage based off of work done. Rather they are seeing an inequality due to their gender. Companies with this inequality...
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...US Male vs. Female Pay Differences: Has the Wage Gap Narrowed and Why? Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………….. 3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………… 4 Literature Review…………………………………………………………………... 5 History of Inequity………………..………………………………………... 6 Pay Equity…………..……………………………………………………... 7 Trends in the Gender Pay Wage Gap…........................................................ 10 Trends in the 1980s………………………………..………………………. 11 Trends in the 1990s………………………………………………………… 12 The Human Capital Theory……..…………………………………………. 14 Sex Segregation Theory……………………………………………………. 15 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………. 16 Predictions for the future…………………………………………………... 17 References………………………………………………………………………….. 18 Abstract Pay differences between men and women is still a topic that keeps re-surfacing over the years. Since the signing of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, it is now illegal to pay men and women substantially different wages for equal work. The question is could there still be pay disparity between men and women in today’s labor market. This paper evaluates the dilemma faced by employers and reviews the trends in the gender wage gap. The paper will also investigate possible causes of the gender wage gap. In closing, the author will provide possible predictions for the future. US Male vs. Female Pay Differences: Has the Wage Gap Narrowed and Why? In the United States, there is still controversy about male...
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...changed the fact that women have to work until April 8th to have earned the same amount her male counterpart the year prior. The gender wage gap is quite the topic of discussion. Some don’t believe in it, some struggle to live through it. The first equal pay act was made in 1963, and yet things haven’t changed much. Recently in 2014, President Obama had made some new laws to decrease the gap. One act was supposed to make it so prohibit federal contractors from retaliating against employees that share wage information. Unfortunately, the republican vote in senate declined these acts and shattered the opportunity to fix the wage gap. Most people don’t know the serious impact of the gap because a lot...
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...Eloïse Stark Midterm Essay How to explain that women still get lower wages than men in the OECD countries? In western countries since the Second World War, women’s growing participation on the labor market has been one of the most profound transformations not only of the economy but also of society as a whole. Dual income families have become the norm and in a bid for sexual equality, most OECD countries have created laws to protect pay equality for men and women, such as the Equal Pay Act in 1963 in the US, or the article 119 of the EEC treaty. Nonetheless, women continue to earn less than men in all OECD countries. There are different ways of measuring this. Comparing annual or monthly earnings shows the difference between what both sexes “take home”, which is interesting from a sociological perspective. However we shall focus on the “gender pay gap”, defined as the “the relative difference in the average gross hourly earnings of women and men working full time”. This shows the difference between the actual “price” of women and men’s labor, taking into consideration the fact that men work more hours on average. How does the gender gap stand today? Despite differences between countries the gender pay gap remains a persistent characteristic of OECD labor markets. In 2006, women earned an average of 16% less than men, per hour worked. … Although we can see a slow but continuous drop over the past few decades in all countries In OECD countries, which are...
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...of Gender Compensation Gap and the Higher Education Connection Judith E. Grey-Bowen, Miami-Dade County Public Schools Donovan A. McFarlane, The Donovan Society LLC and Frederick Taylor University Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the gender gap and the potential factors that contribute to income inequality. Since the passing of the equal pay act, the median weekly earnings of women is still just seventy eight cents on each dollar that men earn (Center for American Progress, 2010). To put this in context, the pay gap in 1970 was sixty two cents and in 1992 it was seventy five cents (Institute for Women’s Research, 1993). Undervaluation of women’s work, occupational gender segregation, and discriminatory treatment in the workplace continue to hamper efforts to reduce the gender pay gap. A pay check is women’s and men’s most important source of income. Therefore, it is surprising, discriminatory and unfair to know that after both genders have worked satisfactorily on the same job; they do not receive the same pay. The gender pay gap is the best way to measure pay inequality between men and women. The authors discuss Gender Compensation Discrimination and examine the historical trends in pay difference, the various causes and the methods and paths considered for closing the Gender Compensation Gap. Key words: Gender Compensation Discrimination, Gender Compensation Gap, Equality, Rights and Privileges, Sex Segregation, Gender Pay Gap, Wage Gap, Discrimination, Equal...
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...Discriminatory Wage Gap “The gap between the median wage for a man and that of a woman in 2010 was $10,784.00 per year. The gender wage gap gets larger with age and builds up over time. But for women in the final five years of their careers before retirement, the wage gap grows to a whopping $14,352.00. Over a 40-year career, the average woman will lose $431,000.00 to the gender wage gap” (Cooper 1). Does this seem fair? It seems quite obvious to the common observer that there should be equal pay across the board for the same job accomplished regardless of gender, education or any other factor one might dream up. Nevertheless, according to most research and authorities on the subject of equal pay, there is a gap between the earnings of men and women. Moreover, as one delves into the subject more thoroughly, one notes it is much more complicated than simply equal pay for the same work performed. Women are greatly affected by the wage gap over time where they lose a significant amount of money the closer they are to retirement. As of April, 2014, the Center for American Progress states that to every dollar a man makes, a woman makes 77 cents (Cooper 1). Thus, it is apparent that women are still behind the men in terms of equal pay in the workforce. While women's pay in the workforce has traditionally been less than a man’s it nevertheless has increased over the years; however, as of 2014 there still exists a pay gap which can only be addressed through legislation, enforcement...
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...differences in male and female wages using data from Statistics Canada’s annual Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF) and Survey of Labour Income Dynamics (SLID). In addition to information on annual income, this study also looks at hourly wage data, which is a more precise measure as the earnings data series takes into account the price of labour as well as quantity (i.e. individuals’ work/leisure preferences). This study looks at the variables of race, highest achieved level of education as well as age to examine the existence of a wage gap. Like other studies, we have found that males have a higher wage in each of these areas, with females earning an average of 80 – 87% of the males’ average. Furthermore, we have examined the existence and size of a wage gap in three industries; law, nursing and the education industry. Finally, we looked at the Canadian gender-based wage gap statistics compared to International gender-based wage gap statistics. We deduced that there is, indeed, a wage gap in each of the mentioned industries, and can be partially attributed to human capital theory and occupational segmentation theory, however, a substantial portion of the gap remains unexplained. 2. General Existence of Gender-Based Wage Differentials in Canada The existence of gender based wage differentials in North America have been well documented for decades. Although female-male wage ratios have closed significantly since the mid 1980s, progress in wage equalization has seen some stabilization...
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...several resources on the problem regarding wage gaps due to ethnicity and genders. In the article, It’s Time We Talked About the Ethnicity Pay Gap, Sadiq Khan uses her personal experiences to prove that blacks and women have a more difficult time trying to...
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...The Controversy of Gender Pay Gap On behalf of women’s suffrage social activist have scrutinized the gender pay gap to promote social justice and propel lawmakers to remedy the economical injustices of women. Since the Equal Pay Act has been enacted by John F. Kennedy the gender pay gap has slowly narrowed. However, disparity of the gender pay continues to exist and until economical parity between the sexes is resolved controversy will invariably persist. Discrimination in the work force has been displayed statistically through reports from eminent sponsors. Capitol Hill reports that there is a 23 cent division between wages in the broad spectrum of work professions. What are the factors that contribute to this disparity? Critics who denounce gender discrimination in the work place, support the idea that the pay gap factors around the differences in women’s and men’s typical occupation preference. These supporters of this theory reinforce that, more women who acquire a degree are likely to study education and social services which are some of the lower paying professions. Men on the other hand are more likely to study engineering and medicine and this is the explanation for the variance. However, the culpability cannot be pointed at one single handedly thing. Even though discrimination does play a big factor, other aspects of the gender division contribute as well. For one, women taking off more days due to societal...
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