Free Essay on Equal Pay in Organizations

The issue of unequal pay in organizations remains to be one of the biggest challenges that management faces. The difference in remuneration in these organizations is based on gender, race or even age, even if the employees meet the qualifications. Research asserts that inequality in pay is high based on gender, as women are mostly discriminated. Many activists have orchestrated movements to align this disparity, as they feel that women are not sufficiently valued for their work in organizations. The pursuit of gender equality continues to be an uphill task for many governments, but constructive engagements continue to take place to reduce this gap. This disparity can also be looked into as unemployment since in some countries women are not allowed to work at. This study looks into unequal pay in workplaces and how it affects the performance in organizations, as well as ways of mitigating it.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The issue of unequal pay can be traced back to the agrarian revolution, but even after more than three centuries later, the gap in payment based on gender still exists. Despite the fact that women obtain colleges degrees at a higher rate than men, many women still get low-paying jobs (Brody & Brito, 2006). The last 10 years have witnessed little or no progress in the quest for equal pay, as compared to the 80s and 90s. The United States, for instance, is far behind other countries in Europe and other areas, which have created policies to create more pay transparency. In some countries like Korea, the gap in pay is even bigger, and measures should be taken to reduce it.

Causes of Unequal Pay

In context, direct discrimination is one of the reasons for unequal pay. In many organizations, women with the same qualification or in the same job category as men are paid much less (McCarthy & Stutler, 2007). In addition, women qualifications are undervalued in the job market, which has seen management to pay them less than their male counterparts. Women and men still tend to work in different jobs as well. For instance, more women can be teachers as opposed to men, a fact that may lead to the conclusion that women tend to work in occupations that have average wages lower than jobs done by men. Traditions and stereotypes may also have a hand in unequal pay in the workplace as well.

Effects on the Economy

Unequal pay inculcates poverty as the expenditure outweighs the income of workers. As such, closing the gap on gender wage gap would lower the rates of poverty among women. This translates to the achievement of economic security (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2008). Single parents and women who have dependants feel burdened and chocked of their financial breath by being offered low wages in their jobs, which increases poverty. Apart from economic security on a personal level, women constitute a considerable amount of employed people and a better pay would benefit the nation economically as well (Rosenfeld, 2017). Unequal pay also stifles the growth of an economy due to increasing poverty levels. Closing the pay gap would enable women to gain economic muscles, which could provide a significant economic boost to any economy.

Conclusion

Unequal pay is a major concern in the global economy, as many governments have failed to eradicate it completely. It is the responsibility of lawmakers to ensure that policies and mechanisms are put in place to standardize the pay. It is time that women got the same pay as men working in the same job levels across the global markets.

References

Brody, H., & Brito, C. (2006). When is "unequal" pay not really unequal? Employment Relations Today, 33(2), 87-95. doi: 10.1002/ert.20111

McCarthy, S., & Stutler, S. (2007). Unequal pay for equal work: women and teaching. Psyccritiques, 52(14). doi: 10.1037/a0007084

Olivetti, C., & Petrongolo, B. (2008). Unequal pay or unequal employment? A crosscountry analysis of gender gaps. Journal Of Labor Economics, 26(4), 621-654. doi: 10.1086/589458

Rosenfeld, J. (2017). Unequal pay, unequal work. Dissent, 64(1), 141-145. doi: 10.1353/dss.2017.0025