Criticisms of the gender pay gap theory how the gender. East suffolk council welcomes gender pay gap reporting and what it seeks to achieve. Various economic theories have been used to explain the sources of wage. The gender gap in pay has narrowed since 1980, but it has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years or so. Over the past century, american women have made substantial strides in entering and remaining in the work force and building their skill s.
The gender pay gap measures what women are paid relative to men. Ive been thinking a lot lately about the gender pay gap especially in universities, because thats where i work. Specifically, these critics assert that the raw gender wage gap in america is primarily a result of. Whereas women in their late 20s are earning around 92 percent. The pay gap is the difference in mens and womens median earnings, usu ally reported as either the earnings ratio between men and women or as an actual pay gap, as defined below. Although women workers, as every other worker, produce value that the capitalist appropriates surplus value, in the capitalist relations of production, women workers do not. The youngest born around 1978 has the smallest gender gap and the oldest born around 1958 has the largest gender gap at each age. We demonstrate that more qualified women are then offered much lower wages than men at the equilibrium. Gender pay gap has narrowed, but changed little in past. Monopsonistic labour markets and the gender pay gap. It also analyzes employees reactions to pay inequity. That means that, overall, women make just 77 cents to the mans dollar. Many factors contribute to the gender wage gap, and womens achievements. Thats why aauw works on multiple fronts to shrink the gender pay gap.
Our analysis of our gender pay gap shows that women represent 49% of our population, 33% of our operating board is made up of women. A socialist feminist analysis of the gender pay gap. In 2018, women earned 85% of what men earned, according to a pew research center analysis of median hourly earnings of both full and parttime workers in the united states. The need to reduce the gender pay gap is an ongoing concern in developing countries. After decades of near constancy at 40 cents on the dollar, the gender pay gap has. It is expressed in mean or in median wages, and often as the ratio of womens wages to mens, or in terms of what percentage of mens earnings do women earn.
The gender pay gap is the result of many factors, including race and ethnicity, disability, access to education and age. Theories and theoretical approaches to gender pay gap. They also nd that the unconditional gender pay gap and jobrank di erences are primarily attributable to female executives exiting the occupation at higher rates than men. Although the adjusted gender pay gap is smaller than the oftencited comparison of average male and female pay, it remains an important and statistically sig. Pdf analysis of theoretical approaches to gender pay gap. According to human capital theory, ones incentive to invest in training is directly. Extent, trends, and explanations using psid microdata over the 19802010, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably over this period. If women do more of the less well paid jobs within an organisation than men, the gender pay gap is usually bigger. And this speech she gave in philadelphia in 2014 explains the wage gap very clearly. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap. The gender pay gap measures the difference between average hourly earnings of men and women. This increase in the gender gap in wages over the life cycle occurs despite substantial convergence in average wages between men and women during the period see blau and khan, 2000.
These statistics are 21 and 22 percentage points in the nlsy data. Nevertheless, in spite of womens large share in the labour force, many gender inequities in the labour market, such as gender specific jobs, pay inequities are observed. Not everyone agrees that there is a true gender pay gap. More important to the story, the gaps within cohorts greatly increase over time. As a result, different groups of women experience very different gaps in pay. Gender pay gap report for the year 2019 2020 since 2017 public, private and voluntary sector organisations with 250 or more employees are required by law to report annually on their gender pay gaps, using six different measures see appendix 1.
Analysis of theoretical approaches to gender pay gap. Gender wage gap, in many industrialized countries, systemic differences between the average wages or salaries of men and those of women. Oostendorp there are several theoretical reasons why globalization will have a narrowing as well as a widening effect on the gender wage gap, but little is known about the actual impact, except for some country studies. For starters, the calculations compare the salaries of all working women to all working men, yet these women and men dont all hold the same jobs.
The difference in occupational distribution of men and women is largely responsible for the fact that in 1961, the earnings of women working full time averaged only about 60 percent of those of men working full time. One aspect of gender inequality that is often neglected is the gender pay differential in the public and. A number of studies conclude that sexbased occupational segregation is a major contributor to the pay gap. The median value is the middle value, with equal numbers of fulltime workers earning more and earning less. More specifically, because women especially married women were historically, and still are more likely than men to specialize in household activities, they may exert less effort than otherwise because of a greater preoccupation with household responsibilities. They reduced the gender pay gap from 25% to 11% by taking in account the work hours, education and the period of employment. Key concepts queer theory heterosexual matrix performativity. The most commonly cited statistic for the gender wage gap asserts that women earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. Gender inequality, gender pay gap, and pay inequity. In the united states, according to an estimate published by the institute for womens policy research, the wage gap will not close at this rate until 2058, which is another generation away for women of today. The gender pay gap is a complex issue that will require robust and inclusive solutions. How does the pay gap affect women of different demographics. Read more about the gender wage gap in this article. Mcmaster and waterloo have done internal studies to determine the extent of the pay gap and have implemented pay raises in order to compensate and help close the gap.
But in the past decade or so, progress has stalled. Shes a former president of the american economic association and a leading researcher on the gender wage gap. While the gender pay gap is difficult to measure, the ilo estimates that if the current trends prevail, it will take more. The gender pay gap equality and human rights commission. This result is consistent with the glass ceiling hypothesis according to which there exist larger gender wage gaps at the upper tail of the wage distribution. Today, women account for 47 percent of the labor force, up from 29 percent in. Explaining the gender wage gap center for american progress. This result is consistent with the glass ceiling hypothesis according to which there exist larger gender wage gaps at the upper tail of the wage. Women of color, with the exception of asian americans, fare far worse than white women in this regard, as the gender pay gap is exacerbated by racism, past and present. How the human capital model explains why the gender wage gap.
The gender pay gap the stanford center on poverty and inequality. We document that the gender gap in wages almost doubles from age 20 to age 40. Women and men do not receive equal pay for equal work. Social pressures and norms influence gender roles and often shape the types of occupations and career paths which men and women follow, and therefore their. The gender pay gap explained the gender pay gap is the difference in the average hourly wage of all men and women across a workforce. I start by providing a background to the topic of gender inequality and gender pay. The gender pay gap is a longstanding phenomenon and its causes are complex. Accounting for the sources of the level and changes in the gender pay gap will provide guidance for understanding recent research studying gender and the labor market.
Women who worked fulltime, yearround in 2014 earned on average, of mens median annual earnings. The revised gender pay gap was 68% in the years 200620. We demonstrate that more qualified women are then offered. Theories explaining the gender pay gap there are a variety of theoretical explanations for the existence of the gender pay gap.
This briefing paper provides statistics on the size of the gender pay gap in the uk, looks at some of the reasons why the gender pay gap arises and discusses the duty on large employers to report on the size of the gender pay gap in their workforce. After decades of near constancy at 40 cents on the dollar, the gender pay gap has declined markedly. There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of. This study contributes to the literature in three respects. As he said, traditionally, women have been far more. Integrating organizational justice into the relationship management theory. Gender assumptions have a direct link to the gender pay gap, as they dictate the field of work that many women are in. However, what you do with the figures afterwards may require much more skill from people professionals. The gender pay gap national institute of economic and. You can download a copy of this report in microsoft word and pdf formats from. Key concepts hegemonic masculinity patriarchal dividend.
The median value is the middle value, with equal numbers. Women are significantly overrepresented in the lowest paying occupations, as femaledominated jobs pay far less than maledominated jobs ting, 2017. The number of women in the world labour force is growing. The contribution of our paper is to use execucomp data for 1992 to 2005 to document three new facts about gender di erences in the structure of executive compensation. Figure 1 shows the longrun trends in the gender pay gap over the 19552014 period. A socialist feminist analysis of the gender pay gap the question of pay equity, obscured by mitt romneys binders of women remark in the presidential candidates debate, remains critical to american familiestwoparent and femaleheaded households alike. The gender wage gap in the united states favors men and remains significant despite having steadily decreased since 1979. A theory of gender wage gap munich personal repec archive. Francine blau and lawrence kahn document these developments and explore the reasons both for. Endnotes and citations are available in the pdf and scribd versions. Occupational segregation and the gender wage gap the 1963 report of the presidents commission on the status of women states. The cologne institute for economic research adjusted the wage gap to less than 2%.
Over the last few years, some canadian universities e. Human capital theory seeks to explain it through reference to differences. In this chapter, i introduce the topic of the thesis and outline its main purpose. Theories and theoretical approaches to gender pay gap conflict theory this theory suggest that social problems occur when the perceived dominant group mistreat subordinate ones, and push for a balance of power between the. In the model economy, the gender differences in wage growth imply an increase in the gender wage gap of 25 percentage points for noncollege women between age 17 and age 40 and of 22 percentage points for college women between age 23 and age 40. Under capitalism all workers are exploited, but not to the same extent. The fall 2018 edition of the simple truth about the gender pay gap was written by aauw.