Introduction
The gender wage gap is an important global problem that amounts to a social justice issue, a human rights issue, a political problem and also an economic issue. Experts arrive at gender pay gaps by evaluating women and men from a carefully selected group from the perspective of how much they earn. If one group earns substantively higher than the other, then a gender pay gap problem can be said to exist (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2016). The gender gap is one of the several gender-based issues facing women in the workplace all of which reflect the global community negatively and also adversely affect the workplace (Higgins & Regan, 2016). It is worthy of notice that to some extent, all the other gender-based issues at the workplace have a direct or passive effect on the gender gap. Among the secondary issues regarding the aforementioned include gender discrimination and sexual harassment (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2016). Over and above the secondary issues above are other bearing factors which experts have categorized as voluntary, involuntary and external factors. The international gender pay gap issue is a multifaceted problem whose solution must involve different perspectives key among then being the elimination of gender-based discrimination and also affirmative action.
Historical Background of the Problem
Whereas the international gender pay gap is an important issue in the 21 st century, it has also been a major historical issue with its history acting as a major bearing factor to the problem as it is today. The world rarely agrees on a singular issue, both in history and at the current times due to the exponential differenced in culture and norms. Unfortunately, when it comes to gender-based discrimination against women, the world seems to have been speaking with one voice as history will reflect (Ferrant, Nowacka & Thim, 2015; Higgins & Regan, 2016). Discrimination against women may vary from nation to nation and from culture to culture but it is a common motif that almost never fails to be detected in any culture. Traditionally, women would be expected to stay home and take care of children as men went hunting and gathering (Higgins & Regan, 2016). As civilization grew, women would be expected to stay home and undertake domestic duties as men went to work. Eventually, women were allowed to work but the burden of domestic work remained, hence denying them the opportunity to work as many hours as the men (O’Reilly et al., 2015). More importantly, most societies never really accepted women as workers hence allowing a woman to work was seemed as doing her a favor, a fact that made it difficult for women to negotiate equal wages with men. Whereas many of the social issues as outlined above have changed, their impact can still be seen when canvassing the issues that drive the international gender pay gap in the 21 st century.
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Bearing Factors of Gender Pay Gap
Over and above the traditional factors outlined above, the primary factors for the international gender pay gap can be classified as voluntary factors, involuntary factors or inane, and external factors. It is, however, important to note that these categories are intertwined and also cannot be taken literary. A good example is the so-called voluntary factors which include women electing to work part-time when there are full-time jobs available (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2016). As a direct consequence of working part-time, women will end up getting a lower wage than men. However, volunteering to work part-time is often not a choice for women around the world. The choice of forced upon them based on the circumstances under which they live (O’Reilly et al., 2015). A good example of the reasons for such choices is that in most cultures, domestic chores are still the reserve of women (Ferrant, Nowacka & Thim, 2015; Higgins & Regan, 2016). Many working women still need to clean after their families, cook and look after the children among other household chores. Such women will lack both the energy and time for full time jobs. Voluntary factors, therefore, are in most cases forced upon the women.
Among the inane or voluntary factors include those factors that cause women to have lower pay than men, yet women have no active control over them. The most common among bearing factors in this category are reproductive health issues (Onarheim, Iversen & Bloom, 2016). For a start, women are that carries out the overwhelming majority of duties in the process of human procreation. The process of carrying a baby to term comes with a massive volume of physical and psychological challenges that affect a woman’s ability to work. In some cultures around the world, it is expected of women to have several children at the prime of their lives which is the very same time that the men are building their careers (Higgins & Regan, 2016). Motherhood thus robs many women an opportunity for career development. Conversely, the female reproductive system carries with it a higher propensity for health problems than the male reproductive system (Onarheim, Iversen & Bloom, 2016). Women are thus more likely to lose working days or be less effective at work because they are having health-related issues. Unfortunately, the female reproductive system will have health-based challenges as a consequence of having children and also as a consequence of not having children due to complications such as fibroids. Even of the involuntary factors above may not affect all women, they still affect a number of women large enough to affect the overall group from the perspective of wages.
Secondary to the voluntary and inane issues addressed above, gender-based discrimination plays a crucial role as an external factor bearing upon the gender pay gap. Discrimination, as used herein, takes a variety of approaches. The first is the kind of discrimination that reduces the access of education for girls, mainly based on the cultural affiliation of institutionalized gender discrimination (O’Reilly et al., 2015). In modern times, most jobs require a level of skill and with the proliferation of information technology, higher education is almost a basic requirement for professional and even vocational advancement (Olivetti & Petrongolo, 2016). When women are stuck in lower job groups because of a lack of education, they end up earning less than men. Gender discrimination also plays a role when a man and a woman, doing the very same job are paid differently with the woman getting less than the man. Unequal pay for equal work is a common form of gender-based discrimination across the world both in the developing and developed countries such as the USA (Blau & Kahn, 2017). Another important example is women having a lower propensity for promotions despite being as competent and qualified as their male counterparts (Roberts, 2015). Discrimination against women in the workplace is a global problem that plays a major role in the international gender pay gap.
Overview of Current Solutions, Their Plausibility, and Probable Improvements
The efforts to end the international gender pay gaps have included legislative options, the advocacy options, and industrial options. Advocacy options are perhaps the oldest form of mitigation for gender-discrimination including the gender pay gap. For over a century, women rights groups have undertaken multifaceted approaches to campaign for women’s rights as a whole including equal pay for equal work (Higgins & Regan, 2016). Such campaigns have been augmented by the proliferation of the internet as social media has been used as a powerful tool for fighting unequal pay including naming and shaming companies involved in the vice. Among the most important modern means of advocacy is carefully mapping out the problem and publishing the findings as has been done by the World Economic Forum through their Global Gender Gap Report (Roberts, 2015). The second important approach has been legislation which includes mitigation of gender-based discrimination and outlawing of unequal pay for equal work (Roberts, 2015; Blau & Kahn, 2017). In the USA for example, 1963 saw the enactment of the Equal Pay Act that was followed a year later by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Such legislation has also been enacted in the European Union and several developing countries. Many nations also have affirmative action laws designed to improve the chances of women getting a better education, better job opportunities and promotion at their place of work.
Finally, information technology advancements have enabled the mitigation of the voluntary and inane factors bearing upon the gender pay gap. For example, IT has enabled women to be able to work from home hence be able to work more hours even when still taking care of children or having health challenges that make it hard for them to head to work (Higgins & Regan, 2016). The three sets of solutions above have not only been plausible but also effective in mitigating the gender pay gap. However, the problem has not yet been solved which calls for the augmentation of these measures and also the development of innovative new and better measures.
Summary and Conclusion
The sum total of the above clearly reflects that the gender pay gap is a major international problem that has been going on for a long time and is in need of a definitive solution. The history of work in the modern world is closely intertwined with the history of the gender pay gap. Traditionally, women were not expected to work as they were supposed to stay home and take care of their men and children. In many countries, this traditional mindset still exists and it denies women an opportunity for a good education, an ability to negotiate better pay and even opportunities for promotion. Other factors bearing on the international gender pay gap as addressed hereinabove include gender-based discrimination and reproductive health issues. A lot has been done to mitigate this problem some of which has to some extent been successful. These measures include anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action laws, and equal pay policies. Advocacy and information technology have also played a role. The success of thus measures has been limited hence in need of being bolstered so as to completely eliminate the problem of the gender pay gap in the modern world.
References
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Ferrant, G., Nowacka, K., & Thim, A. (2015). Living up to Beijing’s vision of gender equality: Social norms and transformative change. Issues paper .
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O’Reilly, J., Smith, M., Deakin, S., & Burchell, B. (2015). Equal pay as a moving target: International perspectives on forty-years of addressing the gender pay gap. Cambridge Journal of Economics , 39 (2), 299-317.
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Onarheim, K. H., Iversen, J. H., & Bloom, D. E. (2016). Economic benefits of investing in women’s health: a systematic review. PloS one , 11 (3), e0150120.
Roberts, A. (2015). Gender, financial deepening and the production of embodied finance: Towards a critical feminist analysis. Global Society , 29 (1), 107-127.
