Women's Wage Gap Analysis

At this moment in the United States, there is a single mom raising her kids and trying to support her family financially, but every day is a struggle. During the holidays she has to tell her kids that she cannot afford the toys that they want. She has to explain to them that she does not have enough money to pay for their lunch today. She has to live with the fact that if she were a man, she would be able to better provide for her children. The wage gap between men and women is still a significant issue today.
There have been many studies performed that illustrate the wage gap between the genders. One particular study on pay equity and discrimination revealed that, “in 2015, female full-time workers made only 80 cents for every dollar earned
Single mothers and female same-sex couples, especially, require equal pay in order to provide for themselves and their families. Many women have a hard time feeding their kids due to the wage gap, which contributes to the fact that “around one in five American children is food-insecure,” therefore, if the wage gap did not exist there would be far fewer hungry children. In addition, when one of the children in a single-mothered family is sick, not having enough money either precludes mothers from being able to pay for child care or forces them to stay home from work. Further, in many cases, if a woman is abused by her partner, one reason she may be able to leave is because she is financially stable. If she does not have that financial security, it is difficult for her to leave. For many women, the wage gap “isn't a matter of having more money in their pockets, it's a matter of survival” (Arquette). The wage gap also adversely affects women when it is time to retire because they will have less money saved, but they typically live longer than men, which can lead to higher poverty rates for elderly women. Approximately 17 percent of women over the age of 65 live in poverty, compared to the 12 percent of men over 65 living in poverty. Due to the gender wage gap, “men make a median income of
Many other nations have made new legislation that has helped close their wage gaps. For example, in 1993, Norway passed legislation to introduce federally-regulated paternity leave. The law changed attitudes about gender and child-rearing. They now view child-rearing as the responsibility of both parents, not just the mother. This policy has caused Norway’s “gender wage gap [to be] slashed in half” which proves that if this type of new legislation is passed in the United States, change will be seen and the wage gap will close more rapidly (Franta-Abdalla). Another example is in Iceland, where their wage gap has decreased and continues to narrow because “the government had not stopped developing policies” since they “enforced the Act on Equal Pay for Equal Work” in 1961. They continue to promote “initiatives that decrease the gender pay gap” so that the gap will keep closing and eventually it will be non-existent. Some of those initiatives include, “setting up a five-year equality fund” and “over half of the grants [from the fund] will be awarded to international equality efforts,” which has helped to close the gap significantly. Iceland’s pay gap is “only 16.3 percent compared to the U.S. 23 percent,” which illustrates that with this kind of legislation, the United States would