Women in the United States are currently work a comparable amount of hours but receive considerably compensation. In fact, “[f]emale workers, on average, earn around 80 cents for every dollar a man makes” (Carpenter). The gender wage gap represents a flagrant issue in modern society overall, however the severity of the situation can become even clearer when the analysis is narrowed down to certain subgroups of women. When the focus is shifted to women of certain ethnicities or regions, the gap can shift dramatically, extending to twice its size in some cases (Miller). The gender wage gap should be eliminated due to its varied impact across different cultures and regions, which contributes to a complex sense of gender inequality.
The size of the gender wage gap varies greatly across the nation, however there remains a widespread sense of gender inequality. Even within the United States, the size of the gender wage gap can change dramatically when specific states or regions are analyzed. Louisiana currently has a gender pay ratio of about 70% while New York has a gender pay ratio of about 89% (Nielson). The fact that the size of the gender wage gap experiences such a large variation simply within the borders of the United States is indicative of a serious issue of prejudice in the country as a whole. Others may argue that this inequality within the gender wage gap can be attributed to some states being more progressive than others, resulting in a higher gender pay ratio in those states.
However, even the state with the smallest wage gap, New York, has a wage ratio of 89%. Therefore, even the most progressive region in the United States has a fairly large wage gap at 11%, indicating that the prejudice against women in the workplace is still prevalent, even if it may be to a lesser extent (Nielson). Furthermore, these statistics are simply averages of the situation for the overall group of women, thus these statistics set an overall baseline. However, it is important to remember that for a large portion of the women in these states, the wage gap carries a much greater impact than is indicated by these average statistics (Carpenter). As such, this variation within the United States is troubling as it displays that the prejudice against women can be even greater in certain regions, so much so that even the average gap is about 30% in Louisiana (Nielson).
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However, deviation in the wage gap can also be positive, as in the case of Puerto Rico. “The median salary for women in Puerto Rico was $24,486 in 2016” (Willingham). Men, on the other hand, had a median salary of $23,711. Therefore, Puerto Rico not only has a significantly smaller gender wage gap than any other region of the United States, but the slight gap is actually flipped to favor women. However, while this flip may seem like a great achievement for gender equality at first glance, analyzing the situation further reveals that this is not the case. In fact, Willingham states that “the same study also points to situations that reflect the same career inequities faced by other American women” (Willingham). While the situation may seem to be reversed in Puerto Rico, the underlying inequalities that contribute to an overall sense of gender inequality in the workplace are still prevalent.
Therefore, while some may argue that the effects of the gender wage gap can be easily overcome, the overwhelming impact of gender inequality are clearly exemplified in Willingham’s claim as the social implications of the gender wage gap remain intact even if the economic impact is reversed. Willingham’s article extends Nielson’s idea of the fluctuation of the wage gap in different regions, offering an example of a relatively positive skew, working for women instead of against them. The gender wage gap can vary in size across different regions, however the underlying social implications of the wage gap remain widespread throughout the world.
The size of the gender wage gap also varies significantly in certain industries. In her article for CNN Wire, Alanna Petroff details the bafflingly wide gender wage gaps in specific industries, stating that “the gender pay gap is widest at soccer clubs, airlines, financial firms and select fashion brands” (Petroff). With regards to the fashion industry, she cites that “the difference in mean hourly pay at Coast is 71%, and 65% at Phase Eight” (Petroff). These statistics depict the great extent to which prejudice against women can impact the gender wage gap. Petroff’s article also displays that these ideas are widespread on a global scale rather than being solely a domestic issue, further exemplifying the severity of the issue of the gender wage gap and its social implications.
Women of different ethnicities and cultures are unevenly affected by the gender wage gap and underlying prejudice against women. John Miller’s investigation into the gender wage gap dives deep into the impact of the gender wage gap on different sectors of women, particularly on certain ethnicities which are hit much harder by the effects of the gender wage gap. In his article, he cites that “the weekly earnings of black and Hispanic women were just 62% and 67%, respectively, of the weekly earnings of white men“ (Miller). The discrepancy between these statistics and the overall average statistic of an 80% gender pay ratio exemplifies the fact that the average statistics actually depict a much smaller wage gap than the norm for a large subset of women in the world, thus the current average statistics represent an overwhelmingly negative situation for gender equality in the workplace. The presence of a gap between the wages of white women and African American or Hispanic women, as cited by Miller, further suggests the existence of a level of racial prejudice even below the overall prejudice against women. The impact of both racial prejudice and prejudice against women is reflected clearly in the disparity within the gender wage gap as African American and Hispanic women fall 18% and 13% below the average for all women, displaying how these subgroups of women face the impact of the wage gap to an even greater extent.
Despite making an improvement of 21% from 1963, the gender wage gap remains a prominent issue in society today with a variety of implications for the gender equality movement. In his article for Dollars & Sense, John Miller argues that there has been a relative lack of progression towards reversing the gender wage gap in recent times. While there has been a decrease in the gender wage gap overall, the progress being made is grossly inefficient as there is little change being made in the short term, with an improvement of only 7.4% from 2004-2014. On the other hand, the 1980s marked an era of remarkable progress with the gender pay ratio improving by a whopping 28.7% (Miller).
In her article for CNN Wire, Julia Carpenter extends Miller’s claim that the gender wage gap has made minimal progress in recent times, adding that in order for change to be made, men must also be on board with the movement for progress. Carpenter offers possible reasoning for men’s lack of belief in the wage gap, stating “[Men] don’t want to believe they are benefiting from an unequal system…which would imply that they’ve been rewarded for more than just their own merits” (Carpenter). Miller introduces the idea that there is little effort being made towards eliminating the gender wage gap and in striving towards gender equality. Carpenter builds on Miller’s claim with possible reasoning behind this lack of progress and a possible solution to achieving the goal of eliminating the wage gap. The gender wage gap continues to be a notable issue today as there have been minimal efforts to remedy the situation recently.
While others may argue that the gender wage gap is non-existent or that its impacts are largely exaggerated, a wide array of statistics clearly exemplifies the unequal treatment of women in the workplace, both socially and economically. Opponents of the gender wage gap argue that women are paid less because “ ‘the man has more qualifications’ ‘ (Carpenter). As such, they argue that the entirety of the effects of wage inequality can be accounted for through differences in education or experience between men and women, which would make men more qualified. However, overall in the United States, “the two sexes are almost equally educated” (Willingham). Furthermore, these differences account for only a small piece of the overall picture of wage inequality. In fact, “differences in education (which favor women) and differences in experience (which favor men) explained 8.2% of the gender pay gap in 2011” (Miller). Therefore, the gender wage gap clearly cannot be explained solely in terms of differences in qualification as this only explains a small percentage of the actual gender wage gap.
Overall, each of these sources confirms the existence of an underlying prejudice against women as a whole, which plays into the prominence of the gender wage gap in modern society. Petroff extends the ideas expressed by Nielson and Willingham regarding the fluctuations of the gender wage gap and builds on their arguments by depicting the wage gap’s global impact, further exemplifying the urgency of the situation. Furthermore, the existence of variations in the size of the gender wage gap between certain industries and regions along with its unequal impact on women of certain ethnicities suggests that there is also prejudice specifically targeted against certain groups of women based on the aforementioned criteria.
The Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History’s summary of Claudia Goldin’s book exemplifies the impact of underlying racial prejudices on the livelihoods of women in the workplace, attributing these barriers as “male employers’ efforts to segregate female employees into low-paying jobs and limit women’s promotional advancement” (“Understanding the Gender Gap…”). These underlying prejudices in society are harmful because they carry grave consequences for women as a whole and aim to drive them further and further down the social hierarchy, with women of some subgroups experiencing an even greater push than others, particularly those of certain ethnicities.
The fluctuation in impact of the gender wage gap on different cultures, ethnicities, and regions along with its clear prominence overall has created a complex and universal sense of gender inequality with several layers of underlying prejudices that must be combated in order to fix the problem. Miller and Carpenter further argue there is a recent lack of solvency in reversing the wage gap, which must be combated with support from both genders to be successful. Therefore, advocates of gender equality must fight for the elimination of the gender wage gap with emphasis on not only its economic impact but also its social implications because it perpetuates a complex sense of gender inequality with multiple levels of underlying prejudices, which are driven by the disparity in the size of the wage gap across women of different industries, regions, and cultures.
