Debunking the Gender Pay Gap in America

Throughout the history of the United States there has always existed the issue of pay equality and opportunity between male and female workers. As the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was passed during the height of a century of activist conflict and civil rights progression, conventional wisdom still finds discrepancies in the overall wages given to men and women. Although the pay gap has become a prominent issue in regards to gender equality, it serves as an even more emphatic display of discrimination within society, especially in the American workplace.

Despite the fact that women earn 60 percent of undergraduate degrees and 59% of the college-educated entry-level force, there is over a 30% discrepancy between male to female wage ratios. . The largely revolving notion of the gender pay gap can be proved as existing due to the implicit work policies, the notion of the glass ceiling, and the cultural bias against traits and attributes carried by gender. First, the gender pay gap exists as a product of potent but discretionary workplace policies that seek to undermine and restrict employees based upon their gender.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission defines any instance of gender discrimination in the workplace as a conflict between supervisor and employee in which the latter is treated unfairly or unfavorably due to their gender. According to the Rockefeller Survey of Economic Security from 2010, it was reported that pay secrecy policies were being established in the workplace upon employees.

It was reported that around 51 percent of female employees had been told by higher-ups that discussion of wage and salary information was to be very strictly discouraged or prohibited altogether.

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The survey responses allowed for agreement that within the private sector, employers were very likely to attempt to control access to salary information. This was said to likely be imposed in order to prevent any sex-based discrimination charges against employers in any instance of having paid two equal employees, of different gender, different salaries. The survey found even more surprising results in which 63 percent of single mother workers were discouraged by employers of discussing their wage and salary with either co-workers or third parties. The existing prevalence of these hidden and unwritten policies by employers illustrates the growing attempt to prohibit discussions of gender pay discrimination, especially in a period of time in which this subject is most important in all levels of discussion.

Sociologist Donna Bobitt-Zeher published a study finding that certain institutional policies published in the workplace served as the primary agent for causing discrimination and instances of gender pay gap. Employers were cited to be using discretion in applying existing policies, which often involved selectively choosing men for jobs and also holding women too much higher standards in comparison to male workers. This stemmed mainly from the policy maker’s view of women in an unfavorable fashion and thus caused unsubstantiated differences in signing contracts, bonuses and allowing for pay advancement opportunities.

Often these administrators and policy makers were making assumptions about women while crafting the various workplace policies, many of which viewed women in negative light in ways such as describing them as volatile, inefficient or less effective than their male counterparts. This effectively led to male managerial officers providing more pay to men workers solely due to the assumption that male employees were providing more for the company than female employees. Thus, these policies implemented in the workplace are a primary cause of gender pay gap. Next, the implementation of the glass ceilings against women workers in the workplace decreases pay advancement opportunities and holds women to lower pay standards. The glass ceiling is defined as a term for the artificial barrier to which mainly women and other minorities are unable to advance to higher levels of management or professional levels within the United States workplace. This associates with the gender pay gap as it altogether prevents women from obtaining opportunities of increased pay or bonuses.

Despite the fact that women hold up to 52 percent of professional level jobs, they are only able to accumulate up to 15 percent of executive positions, 5 percent of fortune 500 company chief executive officers, and less than 17 percent of fortune 500 company board seat members. Furthermore, women control up to 80 percent of total consumer spending in the United States yet make up a whole less than 3 percent of creative advertising and marketing directors. Within specific fields, we find that women make up 48 percent of medical and law degrees, but in the legal field they fail to make up 15 percent of equity partners, the highest position within a law firm, and in the medical field they only comprise up to 16 percent of medical school deans. For more specification, we can view the private financial services industry, conventionally seen as a beacon of educational and professional prowess. Women make up to 55 percent of the financial industry labor force but less than 13 percent of executive officers and less than 1% are Chief Executive Officers.

All of this data provided strongly supports that there exists a huge discrepancy in profession advancement for the basis of women employees, and thus espouses that the glass ceiling truly does exist in context of viewing the American workplace. When viewing the difference in female and male executive composition, a counter argument exists in that the proportion of women managerial and executive positions has increased from 5 percent in the 1960s to over 18 percent in the late 2000s. However, this counter argument does not exactly prove that the pay gap between the two genders, when viewing executive positions, has diminished at all. A study by Ida L. Castro found that women executives make on average around $187,000 while male executives make up to $299,000, which is over a $100,000 difference in base salary compensation. Thus it can be seen that despite the statistics proving that females have increased in composition of undergraduate and graduate degrees, across all fields and educational distributions, their seems to be a glass ceiling preventing them from pay advancements.

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 45% of MBAs are females, an increase over the past few decades. The labor force participation rate from women has increased substantially, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from 40% in the 1970s to 65% in the late 2000s. Despite the increase in workplace entrance by female employees, there still exists a linear increase in management position advancing, and the associated increase in pay opportunities, especially equal pay, for women. The revolving term of the glass ceiling has existed and inhibited equal pay opportunities for women. Although women have been able to obtain increased opportunities in corporate America, there still lacks opportunities that seek to close the gender pay gap. Lastly, the gender pay gap exists as a function of discriminatory biases against the stereotypical attributes and traits of women workers.

A study published in the American Journal of Sociology by Elizabeth Hirsh and Sabino Kornrich found that the context in which organizational-level workplace discrimination exists can be pinpointed to culturally attached stereotypes that attack the perceived capacities and abilities of female employees. Many male managerial officers or employers described biases against female employees to whom they perceived as being weaker or less efficient than male counterparts. The greatest cultural attribute that caused discriminatory practices against female employees was the concept of women being potential flight risks, in which employers thought of women employees who would be future mothers as liabilities to the company. A study by the University of Nevada found that there existed discrimination against female employees mainly due to biases against their cultural attributes. Large business practice norms favored using discrimination against women in order to ensure overall business success.

Consulting firm owners reported that women consultants were less likely to be accepted by clients, despite levels of qualifications or experience, due to predominantly male business clients perceiving women consultants as less capable of producing results. The clients were said to have preferred male consultants, whom they believed were able to reach more acceptable advice and solutions to client issues, and thus gender was pinpointed as a rational consideration in appointing women or male consultants. Thus, it is found that often employers are more inclined to provide female employees with less pay or decreased pay opportunities for a large variety of attributes associated with the female gender. The decreased pay stems from negative perceptions of women as unable of performing at jobs that have historically been male-oriented, such as labor or managerial.

On the other hand, decreased pay advancement comes from the issue in regards to maternal leave in which mother employees must take few months leave from work for familial caretaking. Another issue that comes from this is that many mothers come back and are forced to decide between becoming a greater mother or an employee, and must weigh their opportunities. Most of the time, mother employees will ask for less hours or possibly a part-time job, which would leave them bereft of major pay advancement opportunities. This idea also combines with the earlier described institutional policies that seek to prohibit female employees from closing the gender pay gap. Most of these policies seek to rid of employees that value being a mother over being an employee to the company, or create hidden restrictions.

Combined with the already negative perceptions from employers about the stability and capabilities of female employees, and we can view the gender pay gap as ever so fluctuating. All in all, the gender pay gap exists as a function of many different variables within the American work force and overall society. Despite the many government legislation and enforcement rules that seek to diminish any instances of sex-based discrimination, it is obvious that the gender pay gap still exists. The gender pay gap exists as a product of the many work policies enforced, the glass ceiling, and the discriminatory biases against gender based upon stereotypical attributes or traits.