Why Women Earn and Save Less Money Than Men, Essay Example

From the previous years, labor economists made estimates that there was a gender pay gap existing between men and women in the work places. They however indicated the possibilities of closing down this gap within a 30 years period. From other commentators, there were statements that wage gap was not a reflection of discrimination, but it was because of other factors for instance the high wages for men in great positions and gendered occupational patterns. They also asserted work experience and educational choice as factors behind the fewer wage for women as compared to men. These assertions have had great effect on women. They tried to avert the assertions and make things right by making the right occupational, educational, and negotiation-related choices. The question in dilemma is why women still earn and save less than men even after the realizations of weaknesses and efforts to salvage the situation.

What Are Some of the Women’s Efforts to Salvage the Situation?

Changes are evident with more women now attending college compared to men. This has been a trend fueled by Hispanic and African American women. They go to college more than male peers and they attend in significant numbers. Older women are also returning to school, a case that never was in the past. In the latest graduations, more women have earned master’s degrees as compared to men. High-school girls take advanced science and math classes more in numbers than it was the case a decade ago. This narrows the documented gender gap in the 1992 report by the American Association of Women’s landmark, “How Schools are Shortchanging Girls.” Women physicians have also tripled in the past 30 years with and nearly half the medical school students being women.

Women are also taking up the law classes and the number is hitting high in recent years. American Bar Association president, Martha Barnett was quoted lately saying that women are soon going to lead in taking legal profession. This perfectly said, you would expect that women now can favorable compete against men in earning and saving more from the proceeds from their work places. However, the trend persists. Women still earn and save less when compared to their fellow men workmates. Making conclusions on this issue is trying, and requires an in-depth analysis.

Does the Liberation Movement Have Any Effect on Improving the Situation?

With the introduction of the women’s liberation movement earlier in the late 1960s and the spawning of gender equality demands in the work place, there have been high expectations that change is inevitable and that women expect to reap more. However, the possibilities of the same remain at bay. Even young and energetic women still fear the possibilities of more disaster and failure in their endeavors to work and save more. Rachel Smolkin (2001, 24-25) describes the women prospects as “dead mathematicians.” He interviewed 21-year-old junior girls at elite women’s college receiving negative perceptions on this issue.

Why Then Are Women Still Earning and Saving Less?

Rachel Smolkin (2001, 24-25) says that women remain clustered in the same lower-paying jobs for their entire time at the work place making it very difficult to make it in top positions or get a pay hike of any kind. Most of the times, they find themselves shelved away from the top most executive positions that men take and earn more than them. The fact that women still face challenges in the work place fits them in a bad situation of improving and fighting for the best positions at the work place and earning themselves pay hikes or commission in whatever terms.

Three obstacles are the main key to the women struggle in increasing their chances of pay hike including Child-care responsibilities, overt discrimination and exclusion from core positions for instance the money managing positions or high-power promotions. This therefore continue to chain women in the most difficult situations and obscures their way into greener pastures where they can get pay hikes and earn while still saving more from their earnings. Not that men do not assist women in overcoming the obstacles, the issue is that they have been natured in a way that they do not feel good absconding duties for instance child care. Men even share child-care responsibilities and household chores nowadays more than the earlier times, but women continue shouldering these burdens. They therefore continue to face challenges of fully engaging in their job practices reducing their efforts in making it to success in their jobs.

(Albert, 2002 54-55) argued that the dearth of administrative women contributes to the less number of women in the work places on corporate boards that could provide oversight and set best policies handling issues of women. The women are shut out of these key operating positions. A good example is with the American military. Even after the 1990s changes where there were openings in nontraditional roles for women, a cause of disagreement holds down the women in these work places. More than 40,000 military women were recruited in the Persian Gulf to work during Operation Desert Storm. Many of them even took the positions of commanders of the support units. However, the United States Department of Defense continues to exclude these women from central roles making limits to their opportunities in leadership (Albert 54-55).

Irene P. (1992, 215-230) in his book gender and society stresses the difficult task ahead of women in trying to rekindle their glory within the work place. From the case study analysis, he describes the effect of a preference in both women and men. For men, he concludes that they do not prefer the less paying white-collar jobs that women do.

Most likely, women love working in fit conditions with chances of socializations at the work place even if the jobs still pay less. She deduced that their chance of switching to male kind of jobs were very minimal hence sticking to the old jobs with les pay. On the contrarily, men switch to all categories off jobs regardless of the working conditions provided the job is well paying. This makes them save and earn more with women still chained in the fewer saving because of poor pay (Irene 215-230).

There have been arguments that women earn less that men because they work less. This cannot be a good basis of proving that women therefore save less. It is true that women have a higher possibility of taking part-time jobs than men. However, gender wage comparisons are not subject to the time taken in work. It is possible to work part time and earn even more than the full time workers depending on the type of work. Analysis of the wage difference would best be based on full time jobs for both men and women.

From the bureau statistics reports in the United States, a look at the women and men earnings who work 40 hours in a week reveals no possibilities of the wage gap widening because of the number of working hours. Women working at least 41 to 44 hours per week can earn 84.6% of what the men in the same work place earn. However, the women have a chance to work and receive promotions providing access to higher pay in their work places. For example, women have an advantage of becoming school principals than men because they have an extended 3 years as teachers than the case of men in the United States. This therefore refutes the claim that working more hours is the reason why men earn and save more.

Works Cited

Irene, P. and Barbara, F.  Gender & Society, Vol. 6, No. 2, 1992. 215-230

Rachel, S. ‘Equality at work remains elusive’: P.G Publishing Co. 2001. 24-25

Albert, B. Growing Numbers of American Women Face Retirement Financially Insecure: London. 2002. 54-55