If someone asked you to choose between 80 cents and 1 dollar, which would you pick? If someone then asked you to do a job and said that you could pick how much you were paid, 80 cents or 1 dollar, which would you pick? If you were working next to someone, doing the same exact job everyday, doing the same amount of work, same amount of hours, same amount of paperwork, and you found out that they were being paid 20 cents more every hour, would you do anything about it?
Now, I am sure you realize what I am talking about at this point: equal pay between men and women. The wage gap is, unfortunately, a harsh reality for all women. No matter what education or work experience a woman has, they are still getting paid less. To make matters even worse, the gap only seems to get bigger as women’s careers progress.
This issue affects all women of all ethnicities. While white women make 80 cents for every dollar a man makes, women of different ethnicities make even less. African American women make 63 cents for every dollar, Latinas make 54 cents, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women make 59 cents and Native women make 57 cents. Also, Asian women make 87 cents for every dollar which is the largest payment of all, but still not acceptable. With this, African Americans lose $21,698 a year, Latinas lose $26,403, Native women lose 24,007, and Asian women lose $7,310.
It is not just your ethnicity that affects the wage gap but also your marital and child status as well as age. For example, women who were never married and without children are paid 76 cents for every dollar paid to men. Also, younger women have a smaller age gap then older women. Women aged 15 to 24 working year round and full time make 88 cents for every dollar than their male counterparts make. However, women aged 45 to 64 working year round and full time make 76 cents for every dollar while women aged 65 and older are only paid 67 cents for every dollar. With these statistics, women would have to work about ten years longer than their male counterparts if they want to make up for this lifetime wage gap. This fact makes it very difficult for women to prepare for retirement and retire at an earlier age.
There are many reasons why there is a wage gap and none of them have serious fact or reason to them. The main reason for this wage gap is simply because women are paid less for the same work. Many studies have shown that women are less likely to be hired for high-wage jobs and even if they are hired, they are more likely to be offered lower salaries. With this, women are being underrepresented in high-wage jobs and overrepresented in low-wage ones. Statistics show that women make up about 58% of low-wage jobs that pay less than $11 an hour and women also make up 69% of jobs that pay less than $10 per hour. These low-wage jobs are ones such as child care workers, home health aids, and fast food workers. A reason why women might not be getting these higher wage occupations is because they are discouraged from entering better paying job fields, like STEM. While the discouragement can be subtle at times, it can also come in the form of harassment and discrimination.
One of the biggest reasons that the wage gap is so prevalent is due to the discrimination of working mothers. It has been proven in many studies that mothers were recommended for lower starting salaries because they were perceived as less competent. Women with children are usually perceived as unable to do their job because of their children. However, fathers were actually recommended for significantly higher pay because they were perceived to be more committed to their jobs compared to men without children. With this increased use and access to contraception, this issue of being discriminated against due to being a mother has gone down significantly because women are less likely to have an unwanted pregnancy in this modern day. With the introduction of contraception, women are able to control their own fertility and pregnancies. Being able to control pregnancies now allows women to be able to invest in their own education which can increase their chances of getting a better, higher paying job.
So how do we achieve equal pay for all women of all ethnicities? We need to talk about this issue. We, men and women of all different ethnicities and ages, need to work together to make equal pay a reality. We need to make our equal pay laws even better so that women are able to fight against pay discrimination (The Equal Pay Act is clearly not cutting it anymore). We need to encourage young girls to enter fields that are typically male-dominated, we need to protect caregiver and pregnancy discrimination, and we need to allow workers’ to bargain effectively. This is all easier said than done, but with time, we can do it. We can all work together to make this happen. Join the cause because
Every Dollar Matters.
Equal Pay Matters.
If you are feeling passionate about this issue and want to do something about it, fight for it. Contact your members of Congress here.
As a fellow woman, I definitely agree with everything you have discussed in your post. I think it is disheartening to grow up learning that no matter how qualified, intelligent, and ready for the job we are, we will never be treated equally in the workplace. What does this tell us about the country we live in? What are we supposed to tell the little girls who look up to us? I really like how after you stated all the facts about how your ethnicity also plays a role in your wage, that we need to do something about this issue. It is clearly an issue in our world today and you showed all the facts to prove it. So then it leaves us with, how do we fix it? You clearly are passionate about this issue and it is evident in your writing style. I also really like your post because of the graphics and visuals you present as well. The use of these images really helps the eye take a break from the words. Great job!
I liked the structure of your blog and think that you seem very passionate about this topic. I definitely think, however, that one of the arguments you could have added to the increase in wage gap with age is because the wage gap is actually decreasing, especially with our generation. Nowadays, with more women going to colleges and now that there are more women in STEM fields, the 15-24 range has a small wage gap because these women and men have similar education and thus similar jobs with similar pay. I think one of the main reasons that the 65+ age range has an extreme wage gap is simply the times. Back in the 1950’s, women were not encouraged to go to colleges or possess high-paying jobs. Thus, they never went to school and therefore make less than men for less education. I definitely think that the decrease of the wage gap to 88 cents should be a sigh of relief that the wage gap is, in fact, shrinking because more women are in higher education and maintaining the same jobs as men. To give an example, my Dad works in a computer disaster recovery services company and I asked him if he pays women less than men. His response? “hell no”. He explained to me how he loves the women that he hires and how the wage gap doesn’t exist whatsoever in his workplace- not even with race either, as he is a different race himself! He says how race has nothing to do with wage at all and that the wage gap will soon be a thing of the past.