The Wage Gap

Believe it or not, there still exists a gender wage gap in 2006. In fact, the wage gap has only narrowed by half a penny every year since the Equal Pay Act in 1963. Economists claim that a woman with a degree earns over a million dollars less than a man of the same education. In the 60's a woman earned about 58 or 59 cents to every dollar a man earned. In 1996 women were earning 73 cents to the dollar. In 2004 women were earning 77 cents to every dollar of their male counterparts.When you add race to the mix, anyone who isn't white but especially females, the percentages become even more outrageous. In 1996 for example, African-American women were only making 67 cents to the dollar (the average for all women was 73 cents)

Quite a few groups claim that the wage gap is a "myth" and that "personal choices" are what really cause the gender gap. For example, they claim that women who have never had a child and put work above family make just as much as men do, well much closer, only a 10% margin. Forget about the fact that women are expected, even pressured, to have children and take care of family matters. And that a woman would be treated as a bad parent if she put her career over her family. Forget about the fact that men are laughed at if they are more concerned with their family than the company's profit. Men are not even allowed to take as much time off [as women] when their child is born.

The reason that businesses don't mostly hire just women is that they believe the ones that are paid less are less likely to hold the company's needs as a priority over their family. After reasearching the wage gap I've discovered that unencumbered women (childless) earn about the same as men. The wage gap only emerges today when women have children. This is because women's wages go down about 2% per child while men's wages rise for each child they have. This bias toward believing that fathers prioritize work over family needs while mothers pursue urgent family responsibilities is both why the wage gap exists and why men aren't running out to hire more women even if they could pay them less



These people also claim that women choose lower paying jobs and/or part time jobs with zero pressure from society, so they can have flexibility for their families (Ironic that in Florida, at least, the majority of doctors basically refuse to perform a tubal ligation on a woman who isn't at least 28 or has at least three children). If women wanted more money, these people say, they would go into computer sciences, medicine (except nurses of course), law, engineering, ect. They assume these jobs are more important because they are paid more. Is it not possible that the women dominated jobs have always been paid less? Men and women display different strengths when it's broken down into statistics, and so the male dominated jobs have always seemed "more important" to a male power structure. America is afraid to allow women more in writing than the right to vote, why would it respect female dominated fields; Or the still female dominated responsibilty to take care of anything having to do with family; or the fact that perhaps men would want to be more involved in their families' life? The opposition quotes, "Among adults working between one and 34 hours a week, women's earnings are 115 percent of men's." So! A man who chooses the 'wrong choice for his gender' also suffers...

A lot of people might be saying, "but why wouldn't busineses hire mostly women?" Well, they believe the ones that are paid less are less likely to hold the company's needs as a priority over their family. Women's wages go down about 2% per child while men's wages rise for each child they have. This bias toward believing that fathers prioritize work over family needs while mothers pursue urgent family responsibilities is both why the wage gap exists and why men aren't running out to hire more women even if they could pay them less