There are many causes of gender discrimination in the workplace. Firstly, women are underrepresented in different industries, especially in male-dominated industries such as the auto industry and factory work. In these types of industries usually, people think that women are not strong to do jobs. As a result, men in authority do not always have an open, progressive about welcoming women, and that can create conflict, tension and a negative work environment. Furthermore, women are considered inferior to men both physically and mentally and their love is controlled by men.
The birth of a son is considered a blessing and is celebrated, while a daughter is a burden. Wife beating is common and is considered a method of keeping women under control. Daughters are married off at an early age to men much older than them. The family owner is associated with women and their actions and moments are monitored so that they do not bring shame to the family. Women are confined to their houses and can only go out when accompanied by a male member of the family.
The second cause of gender discrimination is illiteracy, although in metro cities have a higher literacy rate as compared to the rest of the provinces still a bigger population of people, and especially women are illiterate. Parents especially the illiterate ones and those belonging to the low socio-economic group are not favor of getting their daughters educated, because they think that after marriage she will have to go to another house, consequently, it brings them no return.
Another cause of gender discrimination is the high population growth rate. Women in such conditions consider as childbearing is their only means of preservation, survival, and rating. In an attempt to reduce the cases of discrimination, many women find themselves in odd situations when they get unwanted pregnancies, and the responsibility of raising a lot of children (England, 149). Teenage pregnancies contribute the high growth rate of the population. The women who get their child at earlier ages often experience social disgrace. This restricts fair opportunities for women and thus leads to further suffering. Moreover, poverty is another cause of gender discrimination. This is common in developing countries. Women are the major culprits since they are overwhelmingly poor and women in these countries are subjected to very inhuman treatment. Such treatments include, domestic violence, forced child-marriages, denial to inherit property and human trafficking. Poverty is thus a great contributing factor to the immense suffering of different gender particularly women.
The effect of sex discrimination is the reduced economic growth and development. This is as a result of poor education opportunities offered to women. This is a big challenge to economic growth since most of the worlds uneducated gender is the girl child. The uneducated girls are the most vulnerable to early pregnancy thus this may hinder positive development of the economy. Dollar and Gatti (1999) examined the relationship between economic growth and gender inequality. Their results showed that gender inequality is higher in poorer and developing countries than the developed countries. Gender inequality is also high in certain religions. Besides, high gender inequality in terms of poor access to education by women also contributes to low economic growth and income. The study argued that increase in economic growth leads to reduction in gender inequality. Another effect of the gender issue in is the feeling of loss and a negative mind set in women of their ability to deliver positive results. This has in turn led to the underrepresentation of women in sports, workplace and academics (Steel et al, 47). With the high representation of men in most of the major places, women have been looked down upon while their male counterparts are favored. The third effect on the gender issue in the workplace results to employee turnover. A hostile working environment also results in the case of unfair treatment of personnel based on gender. There are high cases of harassment in the workplaces where gender discrimination is not curbed. In some case, violence is experienced in the workplace (England, 149).
The best solution to fight these gender issues is to set up both federal and state laws in all the states to prohibit any discrimination based on the gender of an individual. Remedies for cases of gender discrimination should be established where offenders in financial institution, education institutions and work places should compensate those they discriminate against. Certain inclusion and promotion of diversity will also be very essential in remedying gender discrimination and enhance both sexes equality. Another solution is to hold seminars and sessions for your male employees, so that they understand the signs and consequences of gender discrimination. This can help the men at your company become allies of female employees, thereby creating a more collaborative, positive work environment.