Pay Gap For Women
The wage gap is a statistical value commonly used as an indicator of the status of women’s earnings relative to those of men; this gap is calculated by dividing the median annual earnings for women by median annual earnings for men. According to the institute for Women’s policy Research, in 2015 it was recorded that female full-time workers earn about 80 cents for every dollar earned by men, indicating a gender wage gap of 20%. To understand the wage gap that exists today and what factors contribute to it, we must delve into how it originated.
During World War II a large number of American women began working, and in 1942 the National War Labor Board urged employers to voluntarily adjust wage and salary rates for females to that of men for …show more content…
To further strengthen and better define the act’s provisions, the Schultz v Wheaton Glass Co. case of 1970 rules that jobs need to be “substantially equal” but not “identical” to fall under protection of the act. This prevented the employer’s tendency to merely change job titles of women workers to justify paying them less than men for the same position. Four years later in 1974, the Corning Glass Works v. Brennan case prohibited employers from mitigating their paying of females workers lower wages simply because that is what they traiditionally received under the “going market rate”. By virtue of the Equal Pat Act and aforementioned court cases that fortified it, the wage gap undoubtedly narrowed down.
The fight to end the wage gap did not end at this act; in 2009 President Obama attempted to help address the imparity by signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. However, more than four decades later, the wage gap has yet to have been eliminated completely. Looking at the origins helps understand how the wage gap began and the justifications behind it in the past. Efforts to change these conventional views and practices have not been fruitless; yet they have not taken full affect
During World War II a large number of American women began working, and in 1942 the National War Labor Board urged employers to voluntarily adjust wage and salary rates for females to that of men for …show more content…
To further strengthen and better define the act’s provisions, the Schultz v Wheaton Glass Co. case of 1970 rules that jobs need to be “substantially equal” but not “identical” to fall under protection of the act. This prevented the employer’s tendency to merely change job titles of women workers to justify paying them less than men for the same position. Four years later in 1974, the Corning Glass Works v. Brennan case prohibited employers from mitigating their paying of females workers lower wages simply because that is what they traiditionally received under the “going market rate”. By virtue of the Equal Pat Act and aforementioned court cases that fortified it, the wage gap undoubtedly narrowed down.
The fight to end the wage gap did not end at this act; in 2009 President Obama attempted to help address the imparity by signing the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. However, more than four decades later, the wage gap has yet to have been eliminated completely. Looking at the origins helps understand how the wage gap began and the justifications behind it in the past. Efforts to change these conventional views and practices have not been fruitless; yet they have not taken full affect