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Help the Women of Future Generations Earn What They Deserve

Imagine receiving your first paycheck from your employer when you later learn that you

earn less money than someone who has the same exact job as you. How would you feel and how

would you react? Would you confront your boss and stand up for yourself even though you

would be risking your future employment, or would you stay quiet? After decades of protesting,

unequal pay still remains an issue for women in the United States. From a 2017 research study

on the gender wage gap it was concluded that, “on average women are paid 80 cents for every

dollar paid to men and in middle-skill occupations, workers in jobs mainly done by women earn

only 66 percent of workers in jobs mainly done by men,” (Aly 7). If women and men of all races

and ethnicities were to be paid equally, the certain aspects of the U.S. economy would improve

such as poverty rates, student loans, and late retirement as well as diversity in the workplace.

There are many proposed causes of how the wage gap came about. Women face many

obstacles in the modern work force. As mentioned previously, women are paid less than their

male coworkers for the same work. Women are also often forced into female dominated

occupations that don’t pay very well such as caretaking. Female dominated industries pay lower

wages than male dominated industries even though they require similar skill levels. The biggest

contributor of the gender wage gap is that women tend to work less hours to take care of their

children. There is a misconception where mothers are as less dedicated employees after having

children because mothers will be distracted by their home lives. The irony about that

misconception is that some employers give their male employees a raise after having a child

because they are assumed to be the primary breadwinners for their families, when in reality,

“two-thirds of mothers are the primary or co-breadwinners for their families,” (Glynn). Even

though the Family Medical Leave Act requires businesses to give expecting mothers up to 12
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weeks of maternity leave, it is not required for businesses to pay the women during their leave.

Due to complications from birth, some newly mothers don’t have a choice but to take time off of

work in comparison to the fathers, which contributes to the wage gap (Masser). If women were

paid more, women that are expecting or who have children would have less trouble finding the

means to support their families. There is also a portion of the gender wage gap that cannot be

explained because there aren’t any trends where a conclusion can be drawn from (Mandel and

Semyonov 3). In addition, even though the United States government has enacted many laws

that prohibit discrimination in the workplace, it still happens with no consequences.

If women were to paid equally in comparison to men, younger generations of women

would feel more compelled to peruse a higher education and strive to hold authoritative positions

in their respective fields without worrying about money. An article from Journal of Education

for Business found “66% of the U.S workforce is compromised by women yet only 21% hold

middle management positions and only 15% are at the senior management level,” (Sipe 2).

Those statistics scare many women because it shows a lack of diversity and violation of human

rights. Right now, women feel immune to gender discrimination in the workplace. However, if

improvements were made within the gender wage gap, women would make the workforce more

diverse which would add more knowledge and perspectives within various numbers of

industries. Furthermore, U.S. working environment would improve overall.

A majority of women in the U.S. are struggling to obtain financial stability. If the wage

gap were to close, there would be a significant decrease in the United States poverty rates. A

study done by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found if stricter legislation were to be

enforced to end the gender wage gap, “poverty rate among working women would decrease

from 8.0 percent to 3.8 percent,”(“The Economic Impact of Equal Pay by State”). This
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adjustment would also help decrease the poverty rate among single working mothers. The

rate would go from 28.9 percent to 14.5 percent (see Table 1).

Table 1: The table above shows the overall decrease of women’s poverty rates if there was equal
pay (“The Economic Impact of Equal Pay by State”).

If men and women were paid equally, women would be able to retire at an

appropriate time. There are women just like Mary Lytle-Ganes (see Figure 1) who are

physically no longer fit to work but force themselves to because they haven’t made enough

money save up for retirement. In many cases, women are living from pay check to pay

check. In October of 2017, USBS Wealth Management analyzed that an average woman

preparing for retirement would make 43 percent less than a man after taking time off from

work to care for children by the time they both reach 85 years old (Whaley). This
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horrendous situation is avoidable but nothing is being done to stop the injustice. If the U.S.

government had taken action to make small improvements to stop this inequality, the

economy would have added $512.6 billion in wage and salary income (“The Economic

Impact of Equal Pay by State”).

Figure 1: Mary Lytle-Ganes, a 61 year old from St. Louis hoped to retire from social work after

her recent knee injury, but she now believes it won’t be possible due to her low wage (Whaley).

In 2016, 56 percent of those enrolled in American colleges and universities were

women. Women take on larger student loans than men and because of the gender wage gap,

and they have less income to repay their loans after graduation (See Figure 2). As of mid-

2018, women hold two thirds of the outstanding student debt in the United States. That

totals to almost 900 billion dollars (“Women’s Student Debt Crisis in the United States”). If

the gender wage gap were to close, women who have just graduated would not only be able

to pay back their loans faster, but they would also be in less debt. Many women college

graduates face the problem of affording to pay for rent, groceries and basic necessities

because they need money to pay their student loans. Sometimes it gets to the point where
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they have to work extra hours or find a second job in order to keep up with all of the

expenses.

Figure 2: Women post-college graduation have more student loan debt than men (“Women’s
Student Debt Crisis in the United States”).

Think about the future generations of women. Would you want to see your daughter,

niece, sister or wife struggle financially because of the gender wage gap? Don’t let a woman

you know be in the situation where her only means of survival is having choose to work in

an environment that favors white men. There are claims that the gender wage gap doesn’t

even exist and that if women wanted to be paid more, they should just find another job. The

issue with these claims is that it has been proven indirectly through statistics that the U.S.

government provides, that the gender wage gap exists all over the United States. Women

should be hired and paid based on their capabilities and what they bring to their jobs. They

should not have to quit a job that they’re passionate about because of low wages or the fact

that men in their company are being paid more. The most beneficial thing people can do to
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close the gender wage gap is to educate. Make people aware of the destructive effects of the

gender wage gap. Create an awareness. Prevent pregnancy discrimination, remove barriers

in male dominated industries, raise the wages of women in low-wage jobs. Stricter

legislation needs to be in enacted to stop this inequality. There are so many benefits to

ending the gender wage gap. Yes, this will take a long time to fix and there has been

progress; however, there is still a lot of work to be done.

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Works Cited:

Aly, Yaveline. The Gender Wage Gap: Causes, Consequences, and Remedies. (2017) p. 24.

Bridgewater State University, https://vc.bridgew.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?-

article=1258&context=honors_proj. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Glynn, Sarah Jane. “Explaining the Gender Wage Gap.” Center for American Progress,

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2014/05/19/90039/explaining-

the-gender-wage-gap/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Mandel, Hadas, and Moshe Semyonov. “Gender Pay Gap and Employment Sector: Sources of

Earnings Disparities in the United States, 1970-2010.” Demography; Silver Spring, vol.

51, no. 5, Oct. 2014, pp. 1597–618. ProQuest, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s13524-014-

0320-y. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Masser, B., Grass, K., & Nesic, M. (2007). 'We like you, but we don't want you'--the impact of

pregnancy in the workplace. Sex Roles, 57(9-10), 703-712. doi:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-007-9305-2. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

Sipe, Stephanie, et al. “University Students’ Perceptions of Gender Discrimination in the

Workplace: Reality Versus Fiction.” Journal of Education for Business, vol. 84, no. 6,

July 2009, pp. 339–349. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3200/JOEB.84.6.339-349. Accessed 18

Mar. 2019.

Whaley, Natelegé, 3 Long-Term Effects the Gender Pay Gap Has on Women.  Mic, Mic Network

Inc., 11 Apr. 2018, mic.com/articles/188833/3-long-term-effects-the-gender-pay-gap-has-

on-women#.dCjFIbBkH. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

“The Economic Impact of Equal Pay by State.” Institute for Women’s Policy Research,

https://iwpr.org/publications/economic-impact-equal-pay-state/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.

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“Women’s Student Debt Crisis in the United States.” AAUW: Empowering Women Since 1881,

https://www.aauw.org/research/deeper-in-debt/. Accessed 18 Mar. 2019.