Best Gender Pay Gap Essay 2022

Running head: GENDER PAY GAP
Gender Pay Gap
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Pay inequality and gender pay gap continue to exist in the corporate sector.
Over the passage of years, a myriad of debates have been spurred on the subject of
pay disparity on the basis of genders. It is the gap between the median earnings of
men and women are paid (Mandel and Semyonov 2014). It is often heard that men
make more than women and this statement has been repeated again and again
since women joined the workforce on permanent basis. Even in the modern business
world, there is a myriad of research studies on the subject of the existence of
discrimination in terms of wage in between men and women even in the big
companies. It is called Gender Pay Gap. However, it is to mention that the concept
of gender pay gap is different for different people. As per the Cambridge dictionary it
is “the difference between the amounts of money paid to women and men, often for
doing the same work” (Peruzzi 2015). On the other hand, BBC News thinks of it quite
differently. According to it, “Unlike pay inequality - which compares the wages of men
and women doing the same job - a gender pay difference at a company is not illegal
but could possibly reflect discrimination” (Jones et al. 2016). However, whatever the
definition one may consider for gender pay gap, it is to note that it is a problem that
is continuously affecting the human mind-set since long time.
This essay shall elaborate on the topic of –“Pay inequalities between the
sexes of managers (gender pay gap)”. It shall first evaluate and analyse the notion
of what gender pay gap is and how it is influencing the organisations supported by a
case study. There are many studies that have revealed that women suffers under
compensation more than men and that too in the same department and that gender
pay gap is still thriving in the modern business world. This paper shall analyse the
different literatures and research papers about the same and shall analyse the
impacts of the gender pay gap on the managers, the notion of comparable worth and

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the reasons behind the existence of gender pay gap and why organisations should
stop the practice of the same. It shall further shed light upon the Equal Pay Act and
its roles in tackling the issue.
The concept of Gender Pay Gap
It is to mention that one of the most important trends of the late twentieth
century was the rapid increase in total numbers of women entering into the paid
labour workforce. With the increase in this numbers, the difference prevailing in the
average salaries or wages of men and that of women started to decrease (Bishu and
Alkadry 2017). However, still, men as a group continued earning significantly more
than the women and this is referred to as the gender pay gap or the gender wage
gap. Although there are many laws against gender pay discrimination, the so-called
gender pay gap stubbornly prevails with marginal improvements and enhancements
being achieved over the last decade. It exists as systematic differences in between
the average salaries or wages of women than those of men. Sliwicki and Ryczkowski
(2014) believe that gender pay gap is “the average difference between hourly wages
for men and women”. It still prevails in many parts of the country regardless of the
fact that the amendments enacted in making sure that both men and women are
compensated on equal basis. The gap is seen in occupational division where the
opportunities of employment are given on the basis of the dominant gender within
the sector.
Case study: “An Insult to My Dignity”
The case is about a young girl names Lily Ledbetter. She is a working lady
and she recently found that her company, Goodyear, has decided to make a rise in
pay. She was quite excited but all her excitement reduced when she found that there

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is a wide pay gap in between her and her male colleagues. She found that she was
earning 3,727$ and on the other hand, the lowest paying men in her company were
getting nearly 4,285$ for the same job. She resigned from Goodyear in the year
1998 and given payback and 3 million dollars as damage. However, when she filed a
case in Supreme Court, the result turned different. Supreme Court claimed that as
per the anti-discrimination law, Lily was required to file a formal complaint to the
federal government within 180 days of the first time she was been discriminated in
the office. For this reason, court did not take into consideration her case with a claim
that it did not count as a form of illegal discrimination as she is late. But, Lily felt that
it was a discrimination against her as she was offered with smaller pay check
compared to other working men.
Cases like such at workplaces are quite common. Many women around the
world are paid less than what men are even though they are as educated as those
men. According to Lips (2015), “in 2012, the average woman earned 80.9% of what
the average man made, when examining median weekly earnings for full-time wage
and salary workers in United States”. It is to mention that the concept of gender pay
gap began in the year 1942 after the outbreak of Second World War. During that
time, men were been deployed to the front line of the war and women gradually took
up their jobs to earn livelihoods. It was then when the National War board opined
that female employees should be getting equal salary as male employees would be
getting in the very operation. Notwithstanding this fact, employers refused to agree
with the same and right after the end of the war, they sacked the female employees
from the jobs.
Reasons behind Equal Pay

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According to Jung and Yoon (2015), fair pay structure is a crucial aspect of
the personnel policy of an organisation. Heffernan and Dundon (2015) too in this
context have claimed that an important condition for achieving satisfactory labour
relations in an organisation is to ensure that its pay structure is fair. If the given pay
structure is viewed as despotic by the employees, it becomes a major reason behind
the disturbance in the labour relations. Especially, a “pay structure” is unfair if it
discriminates against women employees of the organisation. This ultimately leads to
hamper the organisational productivity and competitiveness (Jones et al. 2016).
Transparent pay systems and rewarding the entire workforce in fair way send a
productive and positive message regarding a company’s values and its ways of
working. According to Dugguh and Dennis (2014), it is one of the key factors that
affect the relationships of employees at work and their level of motivation to work for
the company. Therefore, it is quite important to develop a paying arrangement that
are not only right for the company, but at the same time also reward all the
employees in fair manner by means of providing them equal pay for the equal work
that they do.
Furthermore, it is also to mention that the fair and non-discriminatory paying
systems are legal requirements and are good management practice that every
organisation must adhere to (Nachmias, Ridgway and Caven 2019). By means of
tackling with the issue of gender pay gap, one can easily increase the productivity
and efficiency and it would help in attracting the best employees towards the
organisations while reducing the staff turnover, reducing absenteeism and increasing
commitment. As per the report of 2019, about 63percent of female employees and
46percent of male employees have reported that their personal incomes are below
50,000$ (Shaw et al. 2019). Here again, the percentile of women is greater than that

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of men. It should be noted that equal-pay is a key part of CSR activity of a company.
It is highly vital for the stakeholders. Failure to make sure that equal pay can result in
some legal claims and reputational damage, which would ultimately affect the
commercial success of the company negatively.
Equal Pay Act
The world-wide labour force has long been a made dominated dimension and
during 1940s, the then jobs were advertised on the basis of gender (Siniscalco,
Damrell and Nabity 2014). High salaried managerial position jobs were secluded for
the males regardless of the fact that often the other gender has the potential of
occupying the job more than the males. The then two-tiered scale used to ascertain
that males were the priority and they were compensated more than the females. It
was not until 1944 when Rep. Winfred Stanley proposed the first ever bill that
demanded National Labour Relations Act for abolishing the gender pay gap.
Again, in the year 1950, Katherine St. George proposed a bill, that granted the
amendment of Equal Rights for both men and women (Garben 2018).
Notwithstanding this, the bill failed initially but St. George stayed determined on his
believe that women are more likely to change the economic status of the country in
positive way if they were given the chance. Finally, in the year 1963, President John
Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act and it was formalised since the beginning of
1964.
It is to mention that the Equal Pay Act outlaws the system of wage prejudice
on the basis of gender and it emphasises on the notion that both men and women
should be paid equally for the works that are done under similar conditions. The
concept of equal compensation comprises of bonuses, salaries and other holiday