Women’s Pay Gap

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Women’s Pay Gap
“The gender wage gap refers to the differences in wages between the two genders: men and women at the workplace” (Farrell 16). It is a common indicator of gender economic equality, and it occurs to some degree in all the countries in the world. A recent HN Human Rights report brought to the attention of the country the continuing inequalities between the two genders, which include a top level of the pay gap and the unequal impact on low income earning women, the obvious minority women, and women from indigenous communities. Typically, the wage gap is measured when annual earnings by the two genders are compared for engineers employed either on the full time or part time basis (Fortin and Thomas 7).
The study and analysis of the gender wage gap are certainly important. The lower earning power by women implies that there is a high danger of them sliding into poverty, especially when they have children, or have become widowed or divorced in their marriages. Moreover, they lose the ability to save for the retirement and can really be poor in their older years. It might also imply the high likelihood of a woman to stay in unhealthy relationships, regardless of the dangers. Engineering as a profession provides tremendous future job opportunities, which include good earnings and even travel opportunities (Card, Ana and Patrick 3). Despite these factors, in the past years, there have been consistent shortages of demand shortages of engineers.

In engineering fields, the majority of graduates are men, and women constitute a small percentage of engineers’ graduates with a degree in engineering in the years. In recent years, women have made certain gains in the workplace; however, the pay difference with their male counterparts still persists. Gender pay discrimination is all facts corroborated by statistical evidence, and not built on myths. Recent research results indicate that women earn about 80 percent of what men earn, and it is pervasive across industries. There are more men employed in engineering compared to women, perhaps even as many as eight times to the number of women in the industry. The gender pay gap between the two genders, when employed in engineering, has narrowed by as much as six percent in recent periods. However, the gap between applicants is still huge, with more men compared to their female counterparts applying for jobs in civil engineering. Despite the narrowing of the pay gap in the industry, the progress with respect to the numbers of female applicants has remained steady throughout.
The widest remuneration gap between women and men in engineering fields happen in mid-career, recent surveys have revealed. Women who work in the fields of engineering earn significantly less than their male counterparts, and the gap peaks during their mid-career. The median wages for men in engineering fields were reported at thirty-six percent higher than for their female counterparts. The median salary for the male engineers was at $80000, which was such a big figure compared to the dismal $60000 amount earned by women (Bromley 194). Obviously, the difference is exaggerated more in conservative regions. The income gap in engineering between the two genders was broadest during their mid-career years. After between fifteen to twenty years of employment, men earn forty-three percent more than women, compared to just about eight percent more after just five years of employment. The rate can be higher after more years of employment.
While survey results showed that on average, men work longer hours compared to their female counterparts. In fact, between twenty-five percent and thirty percent of the men work more than fifty hours and more each week compared to about twenty percent of women. The difference in payment between men and women in engineering is ubiquitous across different sectors and industries. These numbers can crackle up the mind, and a critical analysis of the data would immediately wonder at the unbalanced figures, and one would ask about the women who take time off to take care of their children. Even after factoring variables such as children, research survey still points to a considerable disparity between men and women. While this is obviously some good news for women, it might be equally bad for women. A good majority of women engineers including those of the civil engineering subfield contribute a considerable amount of their household income.
If one is in a household where the female spouse earns income and has a daughter who is destined to become a civil engineer, the effect of the gender gap can hide present and future economic consequences. Clearly, the laws that have a strict prohibition for all types of discrimination in the workplace in Canada have existed for years; one would wish to know why there are disparities continue to persist. While it is true that women are prone to take time off to have children, leaving a job can lead to a loss in wages and can put women at end of in the program for promotion, and hence the opportunity to increase one’s income too. People often float these arguments to justify the gender wage gap in civil engineering Men have higher chances of getting jobs in fields that better remunerated such as those of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics).
Along such lines still, more men work in jobs deemed as dangerous or just unattractive such as working on the oil rigs, truck driving, or a cowboy, and amongst others. Because people are generally less inclined to do these jobs, owners of businesses pay more to people who accepts these jobs. Labor reports indicate that more men become victims of occupational deaths compared to men. On the converse, women are more likely to commit to jobs that provide more flexibility and dependability. In most cases, this happens so that they can emerge as the major caretaker in their homes. In other times, it is just because the jobs they get seem more fulfilling, but non-lucrative. For years, women have been told that the wage gap would contact once more women start obtaining more education and more experience in a wider array of fields. Obviously, while the circumstances might have become better; however, it has not become equal.
Salary survey continues to unearth the truth that people often deny in public, more education has not resulted in similar salaries, some of the highest paid, more educated women in regular surveys face an even bigger than the average wage gap. Kahn (8) proposes that the evidence from Canada and the UK point to continuing pay inequity shall persist for a long time. On face value, these statistics paint a grim picture for women, and they seem rather outrageous, but there are significant forewarnings; remuneration differences thin down considerably, but not comprehensively, when one looks at young females, who are less inclined to take their time in starting a family, in contrast men work longer hours compared to women in similar positions. However, this gap is said to have considerably fallen, by some double digits since the 1980s, and during this age, the pay difference was twice as large as the current period.
While the survey results continue to indicate that there are differences in working hours between men and women engaged in the same work, perhaps as a justification for the differences in pay, the truth is that working hours do not indicate the difference in pay, rather the long-standing gender differences are by far the biggest contributor to the difference.  “Those who argue that the gender pay gap is a myth argue that women earn lower than their male counterparts do because they are likely to choose to work part time”( Farrell 143). Moreover, they are lowly paid because they prefer lower-paying jobs (O’Reilly et al., 311). The proponents of the myth line of arguments further point out that women do not have the same level of education as their male counterparts.
Moreover, the gender pay gap figure is a sham because it is not a reflection of the like for like pay gaps for workers in comparable positions. Other skeptics of the pay gap arguments point out that, women should be blamed fully for their predicament since they do not negotiate for improved pay, and hence it is their fault for earning lower amounts than their male counterparts earn. The notion of choice emerges as a questionable argument, because when one takes into consideration that, women who bear the burden of unpaid nursing roles within households. This is largely the result of historical and social norms playing a big part, and since men earn more than women, for many households, it makes economic sense for the men to work full time as it will lead to bigger income to the family budget.
Women cannot obviously choose to work in an industry that pays lower when there is a choice for a better paying job in another industry. The basic economic theory that supposedly guides rational choice would suffice. Any economic agent would obviously prefer more to less, implying that a woman would prefer a better paying job to a low paying one. Hence, the gender-pay-gap skeptics cannot really rely on the argument on women choosing lower-paying jobs as a solid point to put forward. If one was to imagine that two graduates of civil engineering one a man and the other woman who had the same grade from the university going for the same job. It would be absurd to suggest that the woman would then go for the low paying jobs leaving the higher paying job for the make compatriot.
This scenario does not paint the accurate picture of the situation; in reality, when the two have graduated from the same school, they might begin earning similar amounts for a while, but after a period of service, say that after ten years of work, the male engineer would outpace his female compatriot in earnings. Equally, it might not be accurate to say that women do not negotiate for the raise. Maybe women do not just receive them at a similar rate as men. Some reports indicate that when female engineering workers negotiate, they may actually penalize, a supposed continuation of the male dominion over females even at the workplace. Nevertheless, negotiation is normally linked with masculinity, and hence a behavior unexpected of women.
Works Cited
Bromley, Victoria L. Feminisms matter: Debates, theories, activism. University of Toronto Press, 2012.
Card, David, Ana Rute Cardoso, and Patrick Kline. Bargaining, sorting, and the gender wage gap: Quantifying the impact of firms on the relative pay of women. No. w21403. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2015.
Farrell, Warren. Why men earn more: The startling truth behind the pay gap–and what women can do about it. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn, 2005
Fortin, Nicole M., and Thomas Lemieux. “Changes in wage inequality in Canada: An interprovincial perspective.” Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d’économique 48.2 (2015): 682-713.
Kahn, Lawrence M. “Wage compression and the gender pay gap.” IZA World of Labor (2015).
O’Reilly, Jacqueline, et al. “Equal Pay as a Moving Target: International perspectives on forty-years of addressing the gender pay gap.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 39.2 (2015): 299-317.