Gender Inequality And The Wage Gap Amongst Executives

13 Pages 3230 Words

m in the world of economics, there is a severe wage gap amongst women executives. This problem, however, is not invisible. A social policy has been created to try and combat gender inequality and the wage gap. Yet the question remains whether or not this policy has effectively challenged the problem of gender inequality and the wage gap amongst executives. The following paper will examine this question and provide insight into how social policy fails to correct underlying social inequalities.
The policy that surrounds and addresses the social problem of gender inequality in the workforce is the Fair Pay Act of 2001. The Fair Pay Act (S. 684/H.R. 1362) was introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). It seeks to end wage discrimination against those who work in female-dominated or minority-dominated jobs by establishing equal pay for equivalent work. For example, within individual companies, employers could not pay jobs that are held predominately by women less than jobs held predominately by men if those jobs are equivalent in value to the employer. The bill also protects workers on the basis of race or national origin. The Fair Pay Act makes exceptions for different wage rates based on seniority, merit, or quantity or quality of work. The bill outlines and introduces data pertaining to gender inequality. It states that of forty-four jobs studied which paid less than the average of all equivalent jobs; thirty-nine percent were dominated by females (Norten, Harkin, 2001). This essentially means that jobs with a majority of female employees pay less than if they were dominated by males.
This isn’t the first time social policy has been created to battle gender inequality. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 governed overtime pay, minimum wage and child labor protection, and prohibited pay discrimination on the basis of sex. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 again tried to correct ine...