Gender Pay Gap

Question: Why it is still gender pay gap common and what are the solutions? Answer: Introduction Major social, demographic and economic changes have bought few essential transformations in the society in last few decades. One of the most significant changes it had bought is the massive invasion of women in the workforce. With the increasing trend of inclusion of women in the working field there is a continuous focus on the gender pay equality as well. The progress of women in the workforce is directly linked to the noteworthy advancement of women in the educational field. However having a remarkable educational qualification does not give the women the desired advantage in income (Dipboye and Colella 2013). Several researches in the field have indicated that there is a clear indication of the increased participation of women in the labor force due to acquiring higher education and making substantial earning. Yet it is still a challenge for women workers to earn as much as the men workers earn. There is a remarkable trend all around the world, even in the developed countries, tha t even if women are well educated and participate actively in the workforce, they still earn less than men. For instance, in Australia, women earn around 80% of wage men earn (Newman 2014). This gender pay came has been persistent and it is puzzling through the equality ratio. A huge range of rules and legislations have been implemented to deal with such issues all around the globe. The essay will try to identify the comprehensive motives for the obvious existence of inequality in payroll on the basis of gender. In the ancient times the women usually stayed at home and took care of the family, while the men used to take the economic responsibility. The increasing participation pace of women in the workforce has boosted because of establishing few regulations which had removed the remaining obstacles in the women employment and allowed them to work in diverse industries. After the First World War I, the problem of labor shortage had triggered the issue of incorporating women in the workplace who can replace the men fighting in the war (Cha and Weeden 2014). From the very beginning there had been a clear inequality in the wages of women. Several campaigns formed by different women associations triggered the issue of having the equality in payment. Supporters of the campaigns all over the world promote the theory of comparable worth in this matter, which says that there should always be an equal pay for the jobs which comprises of similar responsibility and skills and this equality should occur at all the places regardless of the market values (Christofides, Polycarpou and Vrachimis 2013). However, still in the twenty first century, there is apparent gender pay inequality all over the world. While in many situations people are happy with the apparent diminution of the wage gap based on gender over the few last decades, the scenario still remains a reason of concern. It is a notable fact that the choice of career for the women and not being well represented in several occupations contribute to the difference in wage between the men and women. If historically observed, there has always been a major professional segregation between the two genders (Haslam et al. 2014). Women have always chosen a narrower form of occupation than the men. This had also led to a subtle stereotype in workplaces. Several researches on the gender pay gap had indicated that among many reasons such as career and choice of education, different work expertise, pay discrimination is generally seen to be more obvious than the subtle stereotyping in work which leads to gender bias. Even if both the female and male managers tend to show the gender bias in payment and hiring process, also in the occurrence of the wage gap across all the occupations and industries (Foley et al. 2015). This trend suggests that the discrimination in payment is an outcome of cultural and historical b eliefs which is mostly common to the world. The most notable factor that may explain the gender pay gap is the working hour difference in women and men. In most of the cases women tend to work in the part time and temporary jobs. However, even if the full time, responsible jobs are considered, it has been proved in many studies, that the median earning of women is approximately 75 percent that of a man. This point out a considerable pay gap exists between women and men. Also there is a factor of vertical segregation that arises in both the private and public sectors when men are located in a higher position like managerial roles or executives and their subordinates are women. Women are generally given fewer opportunities to engage in promoting to higher positions, as a result to that women are restrained their flexibility upwards to the organizational hierarchy and there is a tendency of under-representing them in the senior positions (Beaurain and Masclet 2016). This common phenomenon is called the glass ceiling effect which refers to the artificial obstacle on the basis of organizational bias which prevents the qualified individual from moving forward in the organization and into managerial positions. This factor contributes more ti the gender pay gap. The family obligations such as giving birth or taking care of children and other family members, there are a huge percentage of women who do not participate in the permanent jobs; rather they prefer cart time and flexible jobs. This factor has been found in several studies that indicates that around 36 percent of women become absent to their work places due to pregnancy (Guner, Kaya and Snchez-Marcos 2014). It is also indicated in studies that married men tend to work longer hours than the married women. There is n doubt that part time jobs pay way less than the full time jobs , therefore the uneven participation causes women to be categorized in the lower level of income group with adequate chances to sharpen their skills and promotion opportunity. Another factor that adds up to the gender pay gap that is the educational ways that women and men take in their higher education and passively affects the earnings in the work place. Historically it has been seen that men tend to opt for science subjects while women opt for education and humanities (Geoffroy and Chamberland 2014). However, this is another stereotype that has been made for decades that women are not good at science subjects; rather they are more comfortable in humanities. Therefore the pay in the male occupations is higher than the female occupations. Many educationists agree that there is an active gender discrimination which is partly accounted for most of the gender pay gap. Several companies advertize for vacancies listed separately for women and men, where the mens pay is greatly higher than the women. In most of the situations the skills of women are undervalued and in some cases unrecognized, which is caused by the social stereotype of gender discrimination and the perception that the capabilities of women are less (OReilly et al. 2015). Moreover, in many situations women and men having same skills, work experience and educational qualifications are treated unequally in a same job role. However, it is illegal to discriminate anyone from being employed in any occupation in the developed countries, yet the gender discrimination and biasness initiate most of the gender pay gaps. No matter it is unintentional or intentional, the social gender discrimination and bias is the most crucial element in the perseverance of pay gap bet ween women and men. There might be few limitations that might block the way of equality in gender pay, but there are numbers of benefits that can be gained if the gender pay gap is absent. The increase in the pay will lead more empowerment of women and will help to reduce the chances of violence, harassment and other exploitations at the workplace. In addition to that, it will bring an optimistic effect to the families which ultimately will improve the economical situations. Also if there is a equal pay in the organizations, the staff productivity and morale will increase and absence of employees might be decreased as well. However, there are always interventions of the government implementing the fair pay regulations among the employees, though several academicians claim that only the legislative reformation is not sufficient. There should be non discriminatory policies and practices in the work place and the policies should be cautiously designed and well implemented and should also be monitored to bu ild a positive image to the employees. For that reason the human resource management team should play a crucial role in making the decisions to support the strategies. It is recommended to the organizations to use systematic and constant procedure of evaluation system of the potential candidates and the employees as well to tackle the gender based inequalities. There may be a model approach can be introduced in the organizations to evaluate the probability of the gender bias. Both the female and male recruiters should be involved in the selection process so that female candidates do not face any discriminatory process. There should also be mentoring programs with the help of professional consultants for the female employees to encourage them to take an active part in participating in their jobs and applying for the senior positions. In consequence of the increasing staff morale at work the organization may build a healthy and positive image with growing competitive advantages in the market. With the sincere help of community, government and the management of the organizations, it can be believed that further decrease in the gender pay gap is possible. Reference List and Bibliography Beaurain, G. and Masclet, D., 2016. Does affirmative action reduce gender discrimination and enhance efficiency? New experimental evidence.European Economic Review,90, pp.350-362. Cha, Y. and Weeden, K.A., 2014. Overwork and the slow convergence in the gender gap in wages. 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