Equal Pay for Equal Work

Equal Pay for Equal Work

Since the last twenty years in the pursuit for parity of women in places of work, one of the regularly applied and most valued yardsticks of achievement has been the capability of women to receive uniform remuneration for uniform employment in the job market. It has been made legally mandatory in the U.S. To apply uniform remuneration for uniform employment to speed up the progression of bringing in parity. The concern which currently crops up is if these enactments aiming at uniform remuneration structure are capable of achieving their objectives and if they are really adequate to accomplish complete parity of remuneration for uniform nature of job on the basis of sex.

The paper shows varied views on unequal pay structure by those who oppose it as well as by those who support it. The disparity in remuneration between men and women are intricate and related to each other. It could be witnessed that regardless of everything that has been achieved, parity in remuneration between the genders is still to be attained. Since women normally are paid less, they are constrained to put in more hours for an identical remuneration. The major noticeable effects on the remuneration of females are the choice to have family and bear children. It could be witnessed that despite women's advancement in education, and knowledge, an undignified custom of bias in pay structure continues to be present. Unfair remuneration and inequitable performances thus remains and keeps on delaying the process of bridging the gap between the genders.

Equal Pay for Equal Work

The sex divide is ceasing due to women joining places of work and enrolling for advanced studies. Women are beginning to scale the hierarchy of businesses and are occupying executive ranks. (Nash, 47) Currently, women managers constitute forty- five percent as against nineteen percent during 1975. Women too are getting better academic qualifications. Education is a vital causal feature for the improvement achieved in lessening the disparity in remuneration levels between men and women. With the spread of education among women compared to what it was two decades earlier, the possibility for increased remuneration is more. Nowadays, half of the college degrees are awarded to women and equal to fifty percent of the total degree awarded to study medicine. Remuneration is one of the main cause impacting impetus and relationship in the place of work. Giving uniform remuneration for uniform work is the main idea of compensating the workforce in a reasonable manner for the efforts they put in. (Woodall; Edwards; Welchman, 4)

Regardless of everything that has been achieved, parity in remuneration between the genders is still to be attained. Since the past century, the movements addressing parity of rights for women have done a remarkable improvement. Due to this, a woman has the right to vote, select just about any profession, and safeguard her rights as a human being. However, despite the developments made in the realm of granting uniform privileges, disparities in remuneration continue to be present that disallows women uniform remuneration for uniform employment. While women were told to classify the problems that are most vital to them, equitable remuneration recurrently comes to the forefront among the biggest companies. Generally, nevertheless, men and women are in diverse occupations at varied remunerations, in spite of the reality that the importance of their occupations is same. (Bellas, 301)

It could be witnessed that despite women's advancement in education, and knowledge, an undignified custom of bias in pay structure continues to be present in our offices. Women receive lower pay compared to their male colleagues in professions like scientists and other high-status jobs. Managers have a tendency to benchmark an employee's value in the job arena and thus the remunerations they give are based on an employee's past remuneration. As a women might be drawing a much lesser pay compared to her males colleagues, going through the record of pay received, usually becomes handy to relegate them in the bottom of the salary structure as compared to men. The disparity in remuneration is shoddier for women's skin color; they encounter gender and ethnic inequity. Aged women encounter a greater discriminating predicament, since their salary decides old-age pension and other benefits; women's financial safety is endangered. (Lewis, 25)

To what extent do women earn less than men despite having the same qualification? It is amazing to note that taking into account every misinterpreted figure that refer otherwise, women earn 95 to 98 cent for every dollar paid to an male employee. During, January 1999, President Clinton declared that "for every dollar that a male employee receives, a woman gets roughly 75 cents." The National Committee on Pay Equity observed April 8, 1999 Equal Pay Day to voice against the allegation that women are paid a mere 74% of the remuneration that a male employee earns. In case these allegations are relied on, then the American women continue to be treated as second-rated citizens. (Furchtgott-Roth; Stolba, 38)

The disparity in remuneration among the sexes at present is 20%, which indicates that women who are engaged full-time receive roughly 80% of men's hourly remuneration. This disparity in pay is not merely upsetting for women. It indicates that the aptitude and proficiencies of women are untapped by the companies and the nation. Since women normally are paid less, they are constrained to put in more hours for an identical remuneration. The disparity in remuneration between men and women are intricate and related to each other. People who oppose parity in remuneration hold that disparities that have existed in the past in the standard of education received by men and women have been responsible for the disparity in remuneration structure. A lot of women choose to get married and have children and that can be a reason to remain absent from their workplace more frequently. While normal women are faced with the difficulty of getting uniform remuneration for uniform employment, in that case employed women with children are faced with more serious problems. Compared to men, women have increased likelihood to have interruptions from remunerative employment to attend to children and other family members. These interruptions affect their standard of job knowledge, and consequently affect their remuneration rates. (Presser, 94)

The major noticeable effects on the remuneration of females are the choice to bear children. Eighty percent of women attain motherhood at certain stages in their life, and twenty five percent of women are engaged in part-time assignments, therefore an increased percentage of women's life during the earning years is used outside their work. Women, who are the main nurturers for their offspring, are aware of the duties of being a mother while deciding about nature of jobs, and several women prefer occupations where there is more freedom and remunerations are comparatively less. Taking into account those alternatives, weighing the relative salaries of men and women is a misapplication of figures and a vilely deceptive assessment. (Furchtgott-Roth; Stolba, 40)

The disparity in pay between the part-time engagement of men and women per hour and men's full time income per hour is especially big and, since a lot if women are engaged in part-time jobs, this is the main reason for the disparity in remuneration between men and women. A part of this disparity is because of the part-time employees possessing lesser academic qualifications and not as much of experience in their jobs. Nevertheless, it is because of the part-time engagement being confined to less better paid jobs as well. Generally, women do not travel that much compared to men. This might be due to limited availability of time because of striking a balance between the dual responsibilities of managing their job and attending to the needs of family members. This can affect the remuneration of women in two manners: minor collection of jobs to select from and/or several women desirous of being engaged in their place of residence that results in lower remuneration for those occupations. Women are employed in large numbers in specific jobs. Furthermore, in those jobs where the there is large number of women workers are among the less paid. (Acker, 27)

Apart from this, women are not given lucrative remunerations within the realm of their jobs. At the point of individual places of work, increased presence of women workforce is related with comparatively lower rates of remuneration. Moreover, increased incidence of part-time employment are linked with low remuneration rates, although after other causes have been considered. Other causes that influence the disparity in the levels of pay among men and women comprise of occupational rating practices, evaluation systems, employee reward systems and preventing attrition and remuneration fixing exercises. Even though the disparity in remuneration can be justified in part by disparity in education, experience and/or time in the employee strength, an important component cannot be ascribed to any of these causes and is due to inequity. (Amott, 17)

Unfair remuneration and inequitable performances remains and keeps on delaying the process of bridging the gap. In addition to that at each academic stage the earning of women is less compared to men. Several justifications for the continuous disparity in wages have been explained. It is obvious that women usually receive less and the central issue is to find out the cause. Men have attempted since decades to provide a justification by the help of hypothesis of various academic qualifications achieved by men or the various occupational responsibilities or vocations controlled by women as against those controlled by men. One reason is that women are featured in the remuneration gap equation, and a lot of these women belonging to a bygone period that continue to be dependent on the behavior and circumstances prevailing in the yester years. (Nash, 68)

Adversaries of uniformity in remuneration assert that preferences and not inequity is responsible for the disparity in the remuneration gap. People who are not in support of bridging the gap in remuneration between men and women think that the gap is present due to the uniqueness connected with the sexes. They consider the gap is because of the disparities associated by the sexes while choosing a profession, academic accomplishment and past job knowledge. For instance women are likely to be taken for low-paid jobs whereas men are hired for high-paid jobs. Less than 12 women hold top-most positions in various concerns and the bulk of the women occupying management cadres remain at the low echelons. (Woodall; Edwards; Welchman, 4)

Placing women in these occupations will aid in the reduction of the disparities between the salaries of men and women. However, the posts at the apex level are basically a career of two individuals- characterized by extended hours of duty time coupled with increased pressure of work, frequent commuting and also transfers, and taking charge of the household-they will continue to be denied to women. Critics show proof which reveals that almost all the establishments perform the least, seldom being positive towards giving a level playing field for men and women. As every women has a freedom in her academic and professional choice, in case she chooses a low-paid work, it is willingly and not because of gender inequity. As regards academic qualification, the 'preference' dispute entails that when the educational standards for men and women is identical the difference in pay vanishes. This is not true. From the late 1970's, the educational standards of women have gone up appreciably, however the difference in remuneration remains. Because of reduced salaries of women, working families are deprived of a substantial billion every year. In the absence of enforcing pay parity a price has to be paid, in the realm of social services like food stamps in case of lowly paid employees. Identical salaries enhance self-reliance. Due to more and more number of women engaged for salaries on which their total family is dependent -we have to ensure parity in salaries. It is a fact that difference in salaries between men and women has reduced progressively in current decades, nevertheless improvement has been sluggish from the 1990s. The reduction of the gap of salaries between men and women from 1979 shows reduced improvement compared to what may seem. (Presser, 97)

Since the bygone twenty years, the major cause in lessening of the gap was due to the decline of the salaries of men in absolute terms and not because of the increase in salaries of women. Putting an end to the inequities of salary ensuring that women receive equivalent salary for employment of equivalent worth would obliterate the relentless gap in salaries. Parity in salaries is not merely a concern of working women rather it is a family concern. In case women were capable of receiving comparable salaries of men, earnings would rise. (Smart, 514) Employed parents will have increased expenses on domestic requirements and higher amounts to put aside for meeting the expenses of their children's academic pursuits or their own financial security after retirement years. Employed parents may be capable of spending lesser hours at work and devote increased time with their families, an alteration that a lot of families would accept well. Among the main outcome of the difference in salaries is that an increased number of women compared to men subsist in the stage of poverty. (Bellas, 314)

The added outcome of inequality in remuneration are decreased self-worth and self-confidence and pessimistic personality of women who visualize themselves as being below standard compared to men who get increased salary for an equivalent task. It is these exemplars and outcomes which uniform remuneration for uniform employment were ratified to take care of, and still the proof reveals that they have not completely been successful. In case women who are married were given the identical remuneration for performing similar tasks, household earnings will increase and the rate of poverty would go down. (Liff, 67) in case single mothers who go to work earn comparable salaries as that of men their household rate of poverty will be brought down to 50%. Besides, decreased income during their lifespan transforms into lower savings and decreased pensions at the time of retirement. Decrease in the rates of poverty will even bring down the necessity of government expenses on aid schemes. Hiking the salaries for women and individuals having color skinned raises their potential to purchase that consolidates the nation. With job holding households encountering financial adversity due to slowdown of the economy, it is vital that women and color skinned individuals get reasonable remuneration. (Nash, 73)

Although given the quantum of achievement that has come about due to the crusade of women, there are difficulties, which have still to be surmounted. Increased number of women are been employed in customarily engagements which are male bastions, but get less compared to a dollar earned by a man. Furthermore, in general, women continue to be dispirited by the societal norms to carry on a job arena that is a male stronghold and are compelled to strike a balance between their private lives with their professions. (Woodall; Edwards; Welchman, 6) Although there are enactments in force at both federal and state level since decades for a uniform pay, still inequity in remuneration persists. One move which is required to be taken prior to women can be able to get uniform remuneration is for the government to realize the issue of inconsistency in remuneration and subsequently enact regulation that necessitates bosses to recruit and give promotion with no favoritism. The rules, which the government has approved, are full of shortcomings though bosses can lawfully differentiate on the basis of being male or female. Although federal laws banning inequity on the grounds of sex, ethnic status and nationality have been existent, making them effective is on low ebb and their extent of applicability remains restricted. These enactments are ineffectively implemented and also they are not applicable to the question of disparate remuneration for equivalent assignments in diverse occupations. (Acker, 53)