By Dena Hussain
One type of systemic injustice involves occupation and the pay gap between men and women. It is an empirical fact that men make more money than women for the same jobs, but there are varying reasons for this gap. Some people say that it is women who choose to work is lower-paying/skilled jobs, or choose lower-paying specializations, or it is that women who make up the majority of a job are paid less because they are women (this is outright discrimination). However, the differing choices in type of occupation by women cannot alone explain the gender pay gap; for women who are making advances in, say, a company, they often reach a level that they cannot get past – this concept is known as the “Glass Ceiling”. We usually see the Glass Ceiling in setting where a woman makes it to some sort of managerial position, and when she tries to make it to the next position beyond that, there is something systemic in her way that prevents this from happening; this can be societal and in how women are raised. Oftentimes, women who make it to the top were taught at a young age to “act like a man” – in taking risks, creating beneficial alliances that will help progress one to the next level, choose advanced occupations and/or specializations, etc. Furthermore, when looking at professions that are mainly dominated by women, it can be seen empirically that wages in these jobs are decreasing; this is systematic because originally, these jobs were higher-paid when they were occupied mainly by men – this includes real estate, lawyers, etc. So, the wage gap between gender cannot solely be explained by the fact that some women just simply choose lower-paying and less-skilled occupations and specialties because when looking at women who are not in these positions, or try to climb up the company ladder, they are paid less or prevented from advancements. In conclusion, when looking at any injustice, it is important to keep in mind a quote from Martin Luther King Jr. ; “an injustice to one is an injustice to all”.
Joyce J Chen, Daniel Crown, The Gender Pay Gap in Academia: Evidence from the Ohio State University, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 101, Issue 5, October 2019, Pages 1337–1352, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajae/aaz017
I strongly agree with your idea. The fact I know is especially in STEM fields, the proportion of females is very low. Many companies prefer to choose males as employees because they think males generally have more energy and can be more suitable for high-pressure environment. However, it looks correct but not many jobs require employees to work under high-pressure environment and what they have is simply a prejudice on females.
Hello Dena Hussain,
Thank you for your post, one of the weeks I also wrote about the injustices that surround the gender wage gap. I like how you mentioned that this is not because women are picking less-skilled jobs or lower paying jobs. When I did the gender wage gap I focused on just Ohio. Through research, I learned that Ohio has the 14th largest wage gap in the nation! In just Ohio, women are paid more than 10,000 less than men. That is absolutely absurd to me. How can we say we live in a society that promotes equality when women are getting paid thousands of dollars less than men for doing the same jobs? We can’t. I completely agree with you. Thanks again for your post and good luck the rest of this crazy semester. Stay safe!
— Aaron
Hello,
I completely agree with your points and I think it’s ridiculous that people actually believe that the wage cap exist solely because women choose to work jobs that pay less. I thought the idea of the “Glass Ceiling” was incredibly interesting and it’s something that I had not yet head of before. I think the idea of the glass ceiling is a great example of a systemic injustice because it’s disallowing women to reach greater heights in their professional career solely based off of their gender.