Essay Sample on Wage Gap Between Male and Female CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies

Gender differences in the workplace have been occurring for a long time now. These differences manifest themselves in many forms, such as the number of men and women employed in companies. For instance, some organizations employ fewer women than men. It also portrays itself in the positions that employees hold depending on their gender. Finally, they manifest themselves in the salaries that these companies pay their employees, depending on their gender. Currently, many female workers get a fraction of the pay that their male counterparts get. This factor does not affect organizations in the United States of America (USA) alone; it also affects organizations from developed and developing countries (Lam, McGuinesss, & Vieito, 2013). This evidence shows that this disparity is international. Furthermore, it manifests itself in both large and small corporations.

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These disparities have made activists and other groups demand changes in the way that companies operate to remove these differences. Their actions have had some success since, in the past two decades, the number of female workers in companies has increased significantly (Miller, 2018). However, despite an increase in the number in companies, only 19% of businesses in the country have women in top management positions (Miller, 2018). He also states that this factor is not different in elected political seats since male politicians typically hold most of the leadership positions even in the government (Miller, 2018). Finally, companies have also started employing female workers in top posts. Still, while these changes are currently visible in workplaces, yet much needs to be done to even the conditions between male and female employees. For instance, many women still get lower salaries than their male colleagues. Additionally, research shows that some companies do not include women on their decision-making boards. Finally, the number of female Chief Executive Officers (CEO) is still lower than that of male ones.

Some of the disparities between male and female employees in companies happen as a culture of the organizations. An excellent example is that some organizations do not have women in their top positions, while others pay them low salaries. Their low wages caused companies to develop the mentality that women cannot hold positions that would allow them to get high salaries. The low pays of many female employees in such companies would have caused them to develop the mentality that women cannot have high salaries. Since these companies have held this viewpoint for long, it has made them create a culture that stops them from paying them the same as male employees. On the contrary, these companies would have groomed their male employees for top positions, and therefore, their salaries are generally higher than their female counterparts (Miller, 2018). Eventually, when such a male employee becomes a CEO, he has a higher chance of making more than a female one holding such a position. This case offers an excellent example of a biased company.

This paper seeks to study the differences in the pay of female and male CEOs of fortunate 500 companies. It seeks to determine whether these differences are the results of gender bias, company values, or based on corporate culture. It will, therefore, focus on the pay of female executives holding the CEO position in different companies. It will also compare them with their male counterparts, to see the magnitude of the differences. The paper will use several steps to determine whether these differences result from company values or corporate culture using the wages that it gives its other employees. Specifically, some organizations pay their executives highly regardless of the amount of money that their staff gets (Nirenberg, 2018). It will also consider the salaries of former CEOs of the said companies to see if they were comparable to the ones of their current executives. If it notices that a company pays its current female CEO less than it paid a previous male executive, it will conclude that this discrepancy comes from gender bias. If, however, it finds that the organization pays its current chief executive officer the same as or more than its previous male CEOs, then this low payment will be the result of the organization's culture or value. Specifically, the paper will conclude that the said company usually pays its CEOs low wages regardless of their gender.

Another area that this paper will consider is the amount of money that companies give other low-ranking employees. This area is worth investigating since if the article finds that the pay difference between the chief executive officer and other executives in the company is not significant, then the report will determine that this institution has corporate values that are against giving sizeable pays to its CEOs. On the other hand, if an organization pays them salaries that are much larger than other workers of the company, it might imply that the culture of such an organization is to pay these executives large pays. The salaries that some organizations give to their workers depend on their experience and skills (Nirenberg, 2018). Therefore, this factor could affect the pay that they provide to these CEOs if they have varying experience levels. Such an organization will give a male executive higher salary than female ones if the male ones possess better qualities compared to the other female ones.

Similarly, it would offer its female CEOs higher pays if they have higher experience and skills compared to the male ones. Therefore, in such a case, the reason for the pay discrepancy would be company values since it prefers these qualities most. This paper will examine all these issues before drawing any conclusions regarding the reasons for the salary differences.

Wage Gap Between Male and Female CEOsThe number of fortune 500 companies that have female CEOs is much lower than those that have male ones. While this number has increased drastically in the recent past, it is still small. Specifically, as at mid of the year 2019, the fortune 500 companies that were under the leadership of female CEOs were only 33 or 6.6% (Zillman, 2019).

The image in the figure above shows a gradual rise in the number of female CEOs for the fortune 500 companies. It shows that their number has been rising and falling for other times. This change in their number is the result of several factors, such as companies hiring them, and in other cases, it occurs due to the hiring of new female CEOs. The CEOs of these companies that joined this list had been in those organizations for a long time. For instance, the executive of Williams-Sonoma and that of Advanced Micro Devices are the newest additions to this list (Zillman, 2019). These leaders have been leading their companies for long before they qualified to join this group. Moreover, this factor accounts for the decrease in female CEOs experienced in previous years. Precisely, in the year 2018, some female executives departed from their job, thus, reducing the number of female executives in this list.

Furthermore, this rise in the number of female leaders is not only in the CEO position, but it is also in other posts, such as board leadership cases. For instance, women accounted for only 15.7% of all the board members in the fortune 500 company lists, but it is currently at 25.5% (Zillman, 2019). Companies that have female board members are usually more likely to have female CEOs. Therefore, this rise in the number of female executives for all companies, and especially those in the fortune 500 lists could be the result of there being more female executives in companies. It could imply that having more females in the top leadership positions in companies causes them to change their culture or to stop being biased against women. Another reason for this rise in the number of these female CEOs could be the result of activists that seek gender equality in workplaces (Mitchell, 2019). Additionally, other companies had to relieve their CEOs from their positions following ethical and financial issues (Mitchell, 2019). These factors acted in unison to increase the number of female executives.