In 2015, women working full time in the United States typically are paid only 80 percent of what men are paid, which creates a gap of 20 percent that invokes immense strifes between social classes. Existing as a controversial issue for centuries, gender wage gap remains as an unsolved mystery that causes unrest of both economic and social stability. Moreover, the general rule states that earnings rise as the background of education strengthen for both genders. However, at all levels of education achievements, men’s median earnings still exceed women’s median earnings. Education, in fact, does not eliminate the issue of gender wage gap. The reality is that gender discrimination still exists in our society, but it has evolved and transformed into a more invisible social stigma, as gender wage gap pertains to such a form. This systematic problem is caused by gender discrimination that keeps perpetuating itself due to social structure that established upon persistent obstacles against women’s equal rights and conditions.
Consequently, the lack of awareness of women themselves has been considered as the cause of the issue in our popular culture. Whereas what has been purposely neglected is that the lack of awareness of women themselves in this case is never only associated with individual choice but also the social frame that shackles their ability to think and act. The choices they make are drastically shaped by the existing structure in popular culture. In particular, women are considerably less in STEM field due to gender discrimination. The leaky pipeline problem illustrates the fact that women tend to leave their jobs as they age due to the shift from the main emphasizes on work to family-centered life. Nevertheless, such a choice of prioritizing family life over career by choosing work with lower-pay and involves less concentration at work exists as a trend of women’s living standard. Men typically choose the opposite. There is no doubt that housewives are more common than househusbands, and this embedded value in our culture serves as a fundamental guide that gives instructions to women about how they should act. We learn to be a sex, and no one can separate ourselves from our culture.
We are taught in embedded values in the curriculum, but the commonplace of gender discrimination still does not make it right. According to policymakers’ arguments, the empirical claim asserts that due to such a nature of women’s “natural choice,” the issue of gender wage gap would not need further rectifications. Suddenly, women themselves become the culprit of their own disadvantage and suffering. The empirical claim eludes the revelation that men are unwilling to give up their privileges despite knowing women are disadvantaged. Ostensibly, women with different backgrounds choose to prioritize family over career, yet this choice cannot exonerate the issue of gender wage gap as what the policymakers are trying to do when the choices between women and men are biased with a preference over men. The choices women and men make do not account for gender wage gap. Rather, it is the product of gender discrimination against womanhood. As both gender wage gap and biased options left for women are the consequences of gender discrimination, it is logically wrong to argue or conclude that the consequence of the issue can be the cause of another consequence. Individual choice and gender wage gap are parallel products of gender discrimination that is left by history, and women should not treat with a value of “natural inferiority” in any aspects of life. The mechanisms behind the regulatory regime in this case favors men over women, contributing to limit the effectiveness of the understanding of what truly causes gender wage gap when women are not given equal choices in the society.
This common situation has caused people with deep bitterness along with a growing cynicism toward the opposite gender; as the two hostile genders grow further apart, the gender wage gap no longer lives as a problem related to the distribution of economic resources but a political problem that threatens the unity of a nation. In order to discriminate the widespread public concern caused by the gender wage gap that affects social psychology, diminishing this gap with a system that facilitates the creation of new wealth would go a long way toward allowing more people to share in such a powerful driver of economic success. According to the data collected from Proctor et al. U.S, Census Bureau, Income and Poverty in the United States (2015), “in 2015, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 80 percent of what men were paid, a gap of 20 percent” (Proctor et al., 2016). Even with a progress due to women’s education and workforce participation, “women will not reach pay equity with men until 2152” if the changing rate is still this slow (The Simple Truth, 2017). Existing for all the years that people have suffered, the rate of the progress to narrow down this gap is still extremely low. As a chronic problem left by history, the gender wage gap has caused economic dilemma, contributing to women’s poverty (The Simple Truth, 2017). In 2015, 14 percent of American women in ages 18-64 were living below the federal poverty level, compared with 11 percent of men; for ages 65 and older, 10 percent of women and 7 percent of men were living in poverty” (Proctor et al., 2016). There is no doubt that by paying working women the wages of comparable men would increase individual earnings and family incomes, contributing to diminish poverty by half overall for all working women and for the majority of the family types (Hartmann, 2014). With a higher level of pay transparency, strengthened enforcement of U.S. EEO laws, higher minimum wage and more friendly policies, women living in the U.S. can go a meaningful path toward a life of paying fairly and equally (Hartmann, 2014). A public policy to enhance women’s earnings along with the insurance of a non-discriminatory hiring and pay practices as well as improved training and career counseling sessions can contribute to increase wages for lower-income families (Hegewisch 2016).
More than fifty years have passed since the Equal Pay Act of 1964 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were issued and made discrimination illegal, yet the gender wage gap still remains as an unsolved mystery as what have mentioned above (Hegewisch 2016).According to The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation 2015 and by Race and Ethnicity, written by Ariane Hegewisch and other contributors, the median earnings for women are much lower than men’s, and this is a fact in almost all the occupations regardless of the conditions whether the occupations are predominantly done by women or men (Hegewisch, 2016). To be more specific, based on the IWPR calculation of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016), comparing to men’s earnings ranges, women’s median earnings ratio per week is only 52.5 percent of men’s earning across 119 occupations (Hegewisch, 2016). Unquestionably, there is such an existence of double standards towards women’s earnings at the same level of work comparing to men’s work done. Based on this statics, it is reasonable to conclude that the gender wage does exist, causing damages to women whose earnings have decreased in the condition of the same skill level that men do. Living in a male-dominated world, women’s position in the world does not guarantee them with fair and equal rights due to the injustice in the society. From the “Household Data, Annual Average. Table 39”, an IWPR calculated data from the U.S Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016, the gender wage gap greatly shows its unfair effect on the different earrings between men and women with the same skill level: even in the most common occupation dominated by women, with a requirement of a degree of least level—bachelor, women earn only 957 dollars comparing to 1077 dollars of men who are working at the same field; in addition, in the male-dominated field, taking “software developers, applications and systems software” as an example, a commonly male-dominated job position, with the same requirement of a degree with least level—bachelor, men’s earning is 1,751 dollars weekly on average comparing to women whose earning is 1,415 dollars at the same level of work (Hegewisch, 2016). These specific examples indicate that the occupational segregation is an significant factor that contributes to the gender wage gap that allows women receiving less comparing to men who work at the same level of skills. Across occupations, the traditional concept of male chauvinism till applies to the power-holders (the fact is that mostly these power holders are males). Under this condition, women cannot receive earnings as the majority of men can reach.
The gender wage gap affects women of colors at even greater rates, with Latina women earning just 56 percent of every dollar a white man makes, and black women earning 64 percent; even worse, the wage gap only grows larger as women age, with women earning 90 percent of what men make until 35, after which they are paid 75–80 percent of what men are paid (Vagianos, 2015). Due to the history of slavery or any other racial issues, these colored women could not receive the same treatment with equality and fairness along with justice in the society that is still influenced by racial segregation. For instance, according to the history that is known to public, the white people misused the black people by trading them as slavery that contributed labors to the plantations in America. The prejudice towards the black people prevent them from living with the same opportunity and living resources as other people who are not colored like them. There is not much to argue with about the question that most women are forced to be housewives who have not received opportunities to live lives for themselves but live upon other people’s expectations under the evaluation of the society from different eras. In addition, these women always complain about their mistreated life and blame this for their children. Even though the Congress has been working on cases and laws that address discrimination in the field of employment ratios, the history of these considerings has gone a long way without seeing success since these legal protections still have not ensured equal pay for both genders yet (The Simple Truth, 2017). Women working full time, year-round — across all industries and including all races and ethnicities —earn only with an average of 78 percent as much as their male counterparts, creating a wage gap of 22 cents on the dollar (Vagianos, 2015). These colored women are living in a biased world that limit and prevent them from garnishing a meaningful life with “equal pay of equal work”. The population of women in minimum-wage jobs is considerable. According to the National Women’s Law Center, two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women; two-thirds of workers in low-wage, tipped occupations are also women (Vagianos, 2015). The position of colored women in this male-dominated world is mistreated due to gender discrimination as well as the mistreated legacy of history. Even though the low earning is an essential issue for both genders, women are still more likely to live within the range of poverty-level, not as much as men. From the revelation of U.S. Census Bureau in 2016: “Poverty Thresholds”, across all occupations, there is a magnificent contrast between the median earnings of full-time work between women and men with a fact that 6.5 million women work in these occupations that provide lower wages of 100 percent of the federal poverty threshold for a family containing four members, a weekly earning of 462 dollars comparing to only 1.7 million men in these occupations providing median earnings per week that are below this line of poverty threshold (Hegewisch, 2016). Based on this statement, “almost four times as many women as men work in occupations with Poverty-Level Wages” (Hegewisch, 2016).