Do women really earn less than men? Essay

In Western society today, despite equal pay acts in countries like Australia, the United States and England, women still earn less than men. The pay gap among genders remains one of the most distinct and clear indicators of economic inequality among women today. The difference in pay gaps among genders varies with factors such as education, age, and employment opportunities. In some fields, although women are earning close to their male equivalents, in most cases they earn less. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency of Australia states that the fulltime gender pay gap is equivalent to 17.9% as of May 2015. Meaning that on a weekly basis women earn $282.40 less that the average male does. This high percentage is also matched with England which had a pay gap of 19.1% in late 2014 and in the United States where women only earned 78% of what a man did in 2013.
These statistics are influenced by a number of societal, family and interrelated work factors. These include the ongoing stereotypes about what women should do and how they should act. Other factors include women and men being employed within different industries. As history has shown, industries dominated by women have attracted lower wages than industries which are dominated by male workers. An example of this being female dominated industries such as hairdressing and tailoring earning much less than a plumber or construction worker both industries which have a very high men is to women ratio. Another reason is a lack of women holding senior positions. Women are more likely than their male counterparts to undertake parttime work as they have to juggle societys unpaid caretaker role within the home. Some other reasons for the pay gap include disparities in work experience, education and seniority, as well as discrimination (both direct and indirect).
The broader idea into which the gender pay gap falls under is the concept of a glass ceiling for women in the workplace. Glass ceiling implies the existence of impermeable institutional boundaries which block women form elevating higher in the workforce. Below the boundary, women are able to be promoted, however, above the boundary they are not. The notion of a glass ceiling in society today can be confirmed by casual observation. It does not require systematic research to draw the conclusions that a much higher rate of chief executive officers are men, and the lower supervisors are women. As reported by Fierman (1990), less than 0.5% of the 4012 highest earning managers in top companies in the United States are women. This idea of a glass ceiling is not just a description of the outcome which is that there are disproportionately low numbers of women in the top ranks of organisations, nor is it a statement that discrimination against women remains prominent at all levels of managerial hierarchy. Instead, the glass ceiling hypothesises that the obstacles and relative disadvantages women encounter in order to be promoted, relative to men are greater in the upper managerial levels than at the bottom.