The world is constantly evolving, changing, growing, learning, yet somehow we continue to cling onto so called “traditional views”. No matter how many years go by, no matter how many laws are passed, women are still viewed as less. It doesn’t matter what women achieve or what they do. There are examples of this all around, even in the year 2018. One such example is the wage gap. Wikipedia defines the gender wage gap as “average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working”. In simpler words, women are paid less for the same job. They put in the same time but receive less money for their efforts. This is a breach of equality that society is constantly trying to achieve. For the same job all genders should be paid the same amount of money.
Work by a women should not be devalued;however, this is not the case in our society. Studies show that an excess of women in a field lowers its value. When a field is dominated by men and women take over, the pay in said field lowers noticeably. Paula England, a sociology professor, stated that “Once a woman starts doing a job it just doesn't look like it's important to the bottom line or require as much skill”. She says that “Gender bias sneaks into those decisions”. Paula England is the co-author of one of the most important studies regarding this topic. In her study she used US census data from the 1950s to 2000s, a time period in which the share of women in many jobs increased. In her study she found that when a great percentage of women went into an occupation, the jobs began paying less. In this study, Paula found that there was considerable amount of evidence that employers value the work of women as less. One striking example is in the field of recreation, such as working in parks or leading camps. This field went from primarily males to females from the 1950s to the 2000s. Because of this change the median hourly wage decreased by 57 percentage points. Other examples of this include industries like designers, where wages fell 34 percentage points, housekeepers, where wages fell 21 percentage points, and biologists, where wages fell 18 percentage points. The reverse is true for men. Once they went into a field, the value of it increased. In computer engineering, once the number of men outnumbered the number of women the average pay increased. In fields where men are the majority, the average weekly pay is 962 $ a week, 21% more than of fields in which women are the majority. Through looking at research it is evident that value of the fields that women work in is less.
One of the traditional beliefs that has developed this wage gap is the idea that men run the household and therefore should be paid more. The role of males in our society is still viewed as dominant, but the fact is that this is no longer true. Society has changed drastically in the past 100 years. Where it was once scandalous for a women to be living on her own, it is now completely normal. In fact many women e...
