Introduction
With the national average of women’s salaries currently, 77% of men’s salaries for the same position determine that there is discrimination in gender pay in our society that needs to be addressed. Working in the Education/Corrections system, we often see women overlooked for positions that they are as qualified for or even more qualified for in some cases than their male co-workers. I would like to investigate the evaluation process to determine if there is discrimination that may be a factor in the pay difference of gender.
Another research documenting on the gender and double standards through evaluation found that first women were held to a higher standard or competency from their male co-workers. This variance in how one is held to a higher standard also caused their performance level to be scored lower than the male worker for the same competency or equivalent. She also found that when the person conducting the performance analyst or evaluation was held to a higher standard and held accountable for same then the evaluations were scored differently. When the evaluator is held to a higher standard of accountability, he/she did not have the higher standard expectations for the female worker, and therefore, the score did show a great variance or no variance.
Further, another research projected the U.S. gender wage gap for 25-64 year old form and for 2000-2040. They projected trends in skills and formal education that bridge the gap somewhat between now and 2040 for females. They also show that the more education and skills that women obtain does not help the wage gap but increases it for the times. In part, men with the same skill and education will create a larger gap between the male worker and a female worker. The lower the skills and education, the lower the pay gap will between male and female workers in 2040. They further state from their findings that even with policy changes, the gap will still exist.
These are two of the research reports that I will use to show that the gender pay gap exist and may be due partially to how male and female employees are evaluated on competency standards differently.
Background
According to , in a very comprehensive study, there are various factors that explain, in part, the reasons behind the gender wage gap. Broadly speaking, these factors are a result of difference in decisions made by women and men in an effort to balance their “work, personal, and family lives.” These factors include the development of human capital, work experience, the industrial sector they work in, and any gaps in their employment.
Further, if we do a historical analysis, we find that traditionally men and women have worked in different occupations. Consequently, percentage of female workers varies a lot among different professions. Further, as women had worked in relatively low paying profession than men, their average earnings have been comparatively lower. In fact, results of statistical analysis of different data sets confirm that main factor behind the gender wage gap is the difference between the professions in which men and women typically work. Further analysis has shown that the gap increases as the occupational categories become more detailed and numerous. It is some relief that the gender wage gap does reduces with time. Reflecting back on our discussion, it has been found that most of the closing of the gap is attributable to the change in the occupational composition of the female workforce. Also, they further found that the closing of the gap had to do with a change in behaviour of working women. This change in the behavior is in terms of skillsets at the time of entering the workforce; their investment in human capital; and their attachment to the workforce.
Analysis
The article talks about the struggle of female faculty of York University in reaching pay parity with their male members. This struggle is against the background of Pay Equity Act of 1987 by Ontario government, which was created with this objective in mind. In particular, they struggled with categorizing and evaluating academic work to implement the provisions of the act. The struggle was more so because this systemic discrimination is deeply rooted and has become institutionalized. In the academic environment, the issue of gender neutrality is complicated by the need for assigning numerical value to expertise. Further, there is a need to assess the equal and comparable work – in assessing the pay structure. Unfortunately, monitoring mechanism set up in another university, in response to the act, didn’t bring about any change in practices. In fact, the gender gap only increased in the following years. The research at York University showed that two areas of concern, which is identifying anomalous low salaries and determining how to measure and credit experience. The latter requires the development of means of quantifying data.
It has been found that the problem begins with negotiations for initial salary at the starting level. Upon further analysis of gender difference in negotiations, three key differences contributing factors were found. They were the; attitude towards negotiations; negotiation tactics; and a difference of opinion on desert or justice. It has been found that women in general put lower monetary value on their contribution upon hiring. Also, their feeling of gratitude upon being offered a job has long-term implication on their future earnings. Also, they carry a notion that due to family and other reasons, they may not be as aggressive about career. Therefore, it is these attitudes that come the way of their active negotiations at the time of hiring. This lack of attention to the beginning salary also comes from their low expectations born “out of naiveté, lack of mentoring network, gendered institutional assumptions, and a survivor like guilt that one has obtained the job over many other qualified applicants.”
Besides the salary, there is also a gap in saving of men and women. According to , even though women receive more college degrees than men and enter workforce with better job opportunities, the salary gap between men and women has never been smaller. This approach makes one wonder why women have only 36 cents to a dollar amount of wealth men possess? Further, it was found that never married women who are working full time had just 16 percent of wealth as men in a similar situation. Similarly, single mothers had only 8 percent of wealth as men in similar situation.
Further, according to , traditional strategies such as collective bargaining fail to protect women workers from pay discrimination occurring due to job categories. To prevent such a situation, there is a need for preventive steps such as female-male wage comparison be maintained over a period, and shared with the new and old employee alike. However, in the case of York University, their faculty association found out that any efforts to redress gender inequality leads to the emergence of new inequalities a few years down the line. This re-emergence has been attributed to various factors such as merit raises and marketability adjustments.
Also, it has been found that inequalities re-surface where male and female members are segregated in different departments. Therefore, even when have implemented pay equity, there is still a need for scrutiny of employee’s fairness. This pay equity can be done by using Employment Standards Act or other similar mechanisms.
Put in simple terms, difference between genders based on their qualifications, have been analyzed based on human capital model. Against the traditional background of human society, such as division of labor in the home, women tend to accumulate fewer labor skills than men. Next, as women expect shorter work lives, with a possibility of interruptions, they have less incentive to work towards market-driven formal education. This results in low human capital investment, which leads to lower earning as compared to men. Also, the long hours women spend on their household responsibilities, leaves them with little time and effort to market themselves for a job. This results in their choosing a profession that requires less on-the-job training. Against this background, gender differences in occupation would be expected.
Discrimination in the labour market also affects women’s salary and choice of occupation. Discrimination is a result of biases of employers, colleagues, and clients. Also, in the models of “statistical discrimination”, the difference in treatment of men and women results from an average difference between the two groups productivity. This difference in productivity leads the employers to discriminate on the basis of that average. Lastly, the expulsion of women from the jobs reserved for men, leads to their oversupply in another occupation, thereby, lowering their wages. Therefore, we infer that the human capital model and models of discrimination have a potential to play an important role in explaining the reasons behind the gender gap.
In one such study, regression model was used to determine the effect of discrimination. It was determined beforehand that even a small initial discriminatory difference in wages may go on to become large ones as men and women take decisions about human capital investment and time allocation in the market and home on the basis of these wage differentials. In this study, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) that has information on actual labor market experience, they found wage differential between full time workers of both sexes in 1988, to be 27.6 percent.
Further, in spite of some serious reduction in the gender pay gap since the 1950s, there still are generalized differences in the industrial world. However, there is considerable difference between sizes of the differentials. Their major finding has been that the differences between the countries, with respect to their gender gap, are broadly affected by two processes. Firstly, there are the gender specific factors that include the difference in the qualification of men and women, and also the differences in treatment of equally qualified women. The second factor is the wage inequality, prices of the labour market skills, which are both observed and unobserved. It has been observed that the skill prices can be affected by relative supplies, by technology, or by the wage setting institutions of the respective countries. It can be inferred with reasonable confidence that these centralized wage setting institutions which strive to inter-firm and inter-industry variations in wages are often driven by conscious effort of the policy makers. Also, it has been found that the way setting is far less centralized in the U.S., except for Switzerland, which is one of the reasons for the disparity in the country. The peculiar outcome of the study the greater amount of wage inequality increases the gender differential in the U.S., compared to other countries such as Australia and Scandinavian countries. This data helped explain the paradox affecting the women in the U.S. compared to those of other countries. In spite of all this the United States has, as compared to other countries, relatively less gender pay gap.
Discussion
As discussed previously, the factors that result in gender pay gap stem from the decisions made by women and men regarding their work and personal life. Therefore, it needs to be determined that conscious steps should women workers be taking early in their career to overcome the difference their priorities in balance work and life? We need to be aware of the fact that women will keep considerable more time for their family, and that, can have an effect on their pay parity with men. Therefore, it remains to be seen how they are able to balance their priorities such that they are able to devote an equal amount of time to their career.
Also, we have discovered that traditionally, women have worked in low paying job due to variety of reason. This fact is in a historical context, and we need to move ahead. In today’s context, it should not matter if women are fewer in numbers in any particular profession. To overcome this factor, we need to determine how to spread awareness to make this historical correction.
In situations where the genders pay inequality is somehow linked to different department or sub-group, there is a challenge with regards to categorizing and to evaluating the work. To be more specific, this gender inequality if further complicated by the need to assign a numerical value to their expertise. Therefore, employers should make conscious and deliberate effort to quantify every parameter, and make performance metrics to evaluate the employees irrespective of their gender. How they do it will depend on the individual organizations. Till they do it, it is important they staff members of both genders in the same department should be judged equally. Once that is done, they should make concerted efforts to iron out differences between the departments.
Conclusion
The resolution of the problem begins with recognizing that it exists. There need to be an evaluation of historical reasons so that we know them in detail. The need for the spread of awareness and information sharing cannot be underscored. Also, the organizations should ensure that their evaluation process is transparent and open to scrutiny.
References
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