gender inequality summary
Lauren Bender
Gender Inequality in the Workplace
Not a single state in the United States has equal compensation for men and women in the workplace. In fact, the state with the most equal annual earnings between men and women is Washington D.C. which is still a 9% difference. The reasons as to why women do not make the same as men vary. For one, women naturally tend to go to the caregiving jobs because of the motherly instinct and those jobs generally do not pay very well. Second, employers can be sexist against women, thinking either they are not as good as a man. Also, since women can become pregnant at any time, employers do not want to deal with paid time off for paternal leave. Our group decided on two ideas that we feel would decrease the wage gap in the workplace immensely. The first idea is “daddy leave” and the second is a college campaign and petition. In Norway, they have a law in which new fathers receive ten weeks of paid time off that cannot be given to the mother. This changes the dynamic of their society to lessen the severe gender role differences like we have in the states. It allows men to be okay with taking more of a role in raising their children and staying home with them. This idea transfers over into the hiring process in the workplace because women will not be discriminated against for the chance of pregnancy because men also receive the paternity leave. Also, the overall attitude that women should stay at home to take care of children changes as well. In the twenty years that Norway has implemented this law, the wage gap has decreased by almost half of what it was. The second idea our group came up with was to make college students and the younger generation aware of how severe this wage gap issue really is. We would start with our own campus at Grand Canyon University by posting up flyers with important facts around campus. We would then hold a meeting in Peet’s Coffee to go over the severity of the issue and how it affects our
Gender Inequality in the Workplace
Not a single state in the United States has equal compensation for men and women in the workplace. In fact, the state with the most equal annual earnings between men and women is Washington D.C. which is still a 9% difference. The reasons as to why women do not make the same as men vary. For one, women naturally tend to go to the caregiving jobs because of the motherly instinct and those jobs generally do not pay very well. Second, employers can be sexist against women, thinking either they are not as good as a man. Also, since women can become pregnant at any time, employers do not want to deal with paid time off for paternal leave. Our group decided on two ideas that we feel would decrease the wage gap in the workplace immensely. The first idea is “daddy leave” and the second is a college campaign and petition. In Norway, they have a law in which new fathers receive ten weeks of paid time off that cannot be given to the mother. This changes the dynamic of their society to lessen the severe gender role differences like we have in the states. It allows men to be okay with taking more of a role in raising their children and staying home with them. This idea transfers over into the hiring process in the workplace because women will not be discriminated against for the chance of pregnancy because men also receive the paternity leave. Also, the overall attitude that women should stay at home to take care of children changes as well. In the twenty years that Norway has implemented this law, the wage gap has decreased by almost half of what it was. The second idea our group came up with was to make college students and the younger generation aware of how severe this wage gap issue really is. We would start with our own campus at Grand Canyon University by posting up flyers with important facts around campus. We would then hold a meeting in Peet’s Coffee to go over the severity of the issue and how it affects our