
In today’s American society, many consider men and women to be considered equals, and have the same amount of opportunities as each other. However, there are still circumstances in which women still face inequality. An example of this is the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap is the difference in hourly gross earnings that men and women in the workforce receive on average. Statistics show that women earn significantly less than men do on average across all industries. Now the question our society faces is, “Is the pay gap due to discrimination and prejudice against women, or can it be logically explained by examining certain factors men and women have that could contribute to the wage gap such as skill, experience, education, etcetera?” 

On August 18, 1920, women officially gained the right to vote through the ratification of the 19th Amendment. This was a huge milestone in American history. Prior to this date, women’s suffrage was merely an idea that existed, and women barely had any form of equality to men. Equality was a challenge for females to overcome, starting from the very birth of the United States. Not only were women not allowed to vote, but previously within American history, women were denied many other things such as the ability to own property, to receive an education, or to even enter the male dominated work force. Even when women were allowed to do some of these things, it was largely frowned upon by society, discouraging other women to do so. While men would go to school to get an education that would help them enter the workforce, women would go to school to learn how to properly cook, clean, take care of the children, and cater to their husbands. Jobs that are identified as feminine like teaching, and nursing were the only occupations acceptable for women to have in the eyes of the country. Only when the men left to fight in World War II did the large majority of women begin to participate in the work force in replacement of their husbands. The history of the United States shows that women have a large background of inequality that has been hard to surpass. It is true that women have moved forward tremendously in terms of equality, but the gender wage gap is only one of the many inequalities women still face today. If we analyze a variety of data, it can be concluded that part of the gender wage gap is due to the discrimination and prejudice that women still face today. This is essential for our society to realize in order to create change. This change is important to our country because women are often forced to depend and a man for a reasonable income.

In, “What People Miss About The Gender Wage Gap,” an informational video by Vox, a Youtube Channel, and, “ Technological Change and Gender Wage Gaps in the US Service Industry,” by Simona Lup Tick, and Ronald L. Oaxaca, the underlying causes of the gender wage gap are investigated. “What People Miss About The Gender Wage Gap,” begins the presentation by stating the fact that everyone hears about the gender wage gap: “Women earn 79 cents for every dollar a man makes”(Vox). After stating the commonly known statistic, the narrator goes on to explain that there is more than just discrimination that contributes to the wage gap. The narrator continues the discussion by informing the audience about a study in which they analyzed students from the University of Chicago School of Business. The data of the study revealed that male students make roughly $15,000 more than female students per year, as soon as they entered the workforce immediately out of college. Even though the difference does not seem that large, the data concludes that women may begin experiencing discrimination as soon as they enter the workforce, considering that men and women usually have the same amount of experience, and in most situations would not have outside commitments such as children immediately after college. Further supporting this statement, while referring to another portion of the study, the narrator claims that after students received a nine year Business degree instead of a four year degree, “male students would earn around $400,000, where women were earning 60% less”(Vox). Even with a higher education, the gender wage gap and discrimination still persists. Interestingly, the data also showed that the wage gap beings to narrow as women enter their middle age. This can be logically explained due the fact that women typically have kids before they reach middle age, and would not have such a big time commitment to their children as they grow older. This still does not provide evidence that women do not experience prejudice as soon as they enter the workforce out of college. The scholarly article,“Technological Change and Gender Wage Gap in the US Service Industry,” by Simona Lup Tick, and Ronald L. Oaxaca also goes on to describe a trend that has a narrowing effect on the gender wage gap. The article mainly discusses studies on how, “The major exception from the pattern of a widening wage structure has been the considerable narrowing of wage gaps between men and women during the 1980’s and 1990’s” (Lup Tick and Oaxaca, 1). In order to analyze how technological progression has affected the wage gap, the authors use mathematical equations to hold other variables such as education, experience, and time taken off work constant. The continuous progression of technology has increasingly opened up new job opportunities for the public have displayed as shrinking effect on the gender wage gap. The most classic example of this would be the industrial revolution, which gave job opportunities to women and children whom  did not have many job opportunities at all in the past. When the many different independent variables that affect the gender wage gap including technological progression were held constant, the data displayed that part of the gender wage gap is still unexplained. This leads to the assumption that women are being denied the opportunity to make as much money as men do, based on the fact that they are female. Denying someone an opportunity based off of their sex is called gender discrimination. This piece of information shows that gender discrimination is likely to account for part of the gender wage gap, even though technological change has narrowed it down dramatically. The data discussed in both of these articles complements each other and helps provide evidence that sexism may account for part of the gender wage gap.

A form of discrimination that contributes to the gender wage gap, is discrimination against mothers. This statement is supported by the book, “Gendered Tradeoff: Women, Family, and Workplace Inequality in Twenty-One Countries,” by Jennifer Lynn Hook, and Becky Pettit, and the New York Times article, “The Motherhood Penalty vs. The Fatherhood Bonus,” by Claire Caine Miller. Chapter 6 of, “Gendered Tradeoff: Women, Family, and Workplace Inequality in Twenty-One Countries,” dissects the different factors that contribute to the gender wage gap in twenty-one different countries. Similar to the previous sources, it explains that the wage gap is not purely based on discrimination against women, but can be logically explained in many ways. Nonetheless, this does not mean that discrimination does not exist. One major factor that led to the gender wage gap is the fact that women are childrearing. Many believe that part of the gender wage gap exists due to the fact that women are traditionally the caretakers in a family, and are more likely to take off work to take care of their children. In many instances, this is true. After having children women often end up entering lower paying, female dominated careers because time is more readily available for them to take care for their kids. The authors of the book claim, “The earnings of women with children age six or younger relative to those of men with young children range from a low of 33 percent in Germany to a high of 74 percent in Finland”(Hook and Pettit, 130). Is this pay gap due to the fact that women take more time off of work to take care of their kids, or is there more to it? Considering how wide the gap is in some countries such as Germany, it can be assumed some women are merely discriminated against. In, “The Motherhood Penalty vs. The Fatherhood Bonus,” Claire Caine Miller talks about how men with children are likely to get payed more than men without children, while it remains opposite for women. Women with children are more likely to get payed less than a woman without them. Why does this happen? The author of the article exclaims, “much of the pay gap seems to arrive from old-fashion notions of parenthood”(Miller). By this, Miller means that since women would traditionally stay at home and take care of the children while the husbands would be the, “breadwinner,” of the family, men with kids are more likely to be viewed as the better quality employee. Old-fashioned notions of parenthood create an illusion to employers that makes men seem to be more desirable employees who would make a lot of money, and simultaneously makes women seem like less desirable employees who do not make a dramatic impact in the workplace. This is a form of subconscious discrimination that employers place upon women without realizing it. 

As described in, “Gendered Tradeoff: Women, Family, and Workplace Inequality in Twenty-One Countries,” by Jennifer Lynn Hook, and Becky Pettit, and, “The Motherhood Penalty vs. The Fatherhood Bonus,” by Claire Caine Miller, studies reveal women’s consistent risk of getting pregnant may contribute to the gender wage gap. This would describe why as women enter middle age, the age where women do not have to allocate the majority of their to time to children, the gender wage gap begins to narrow. Parallel to these two sources, the majority of studies done on the gender wage gap have only analyzed the annual pay of people aged eighteen and older. Anyhow, there have not been many studies done that analyze the gender wage gap that teenagers experience. In the scholarly article, “The Cost of Being Girl: Gender Earning Differentials in the Early Labor Markets,” by Yasemin Besen-Cassino, the gender wage gap in the early labor markets are examined. Since almost every teenage works at some point while they are still in school, the earning differentials at this age is a large, understudied portion of the gender wage gap. The article states, “a study focusing on early employment patterns not only offers a more comprehensive understanding of the gender based wage differentials by a previously excluded, but -yet substantial- portion of the labor force, but also provides opportunity to trace the origins of the gender wage gap while allowing us to control for individual characteristics such as domestic and maternal duties”(Besen-Cassino 147). Many believe that the gender wage gap is nonexistent in the teen age group, but the research discussed in the scholarly article suggests that gender discrimination in the workplace reflected through the wage gap begins before adulthood. The article states, “by the time that youths in the study are in the second age group, 14- to 15-years olds, boy’s earnings surpass girls’ wages substantially, with boys earning an average of $400 a year, and girls earning only $266”(Besen-Cassino 151). This statement reflects that fourteen is the first age where the gender wage gap approaches the youth. Prior to this age, boys and girls make relatively the same amount. Considering that at 14 and 15-year old teenagers are usually not being paid an hourly rate, it is important to look at the difference in hours that boys and girls are working per week, to see if the annual wage gap can be explained. “Based on NLSY97 data, we can see that girls work on average, 7.9 hours a week with a standard deviation of 9.9, while boys work 7.2 hours a week with a standard deviation of 9.9”(Besen-Cassino, 152).  The information shows that with the same standard deviation, the majority of boys and girls of this age work approximately the same amount of time a week. While looking at this piece of data, and recognizing that boys and girls have the same amount of education at this age, it can be assumed that girls yearly wages reflect discrimination based on their sex.

Many people in our society believe that the gender wage gap does not result from discrimination. Some believe that it could be fixed by simply changing the way women approach job opportunities. The two New York Times articles, “How to Attack the Gender Wage Gap? Speak Up,” by Jessica Bennett, and, “Another Reason Women May Be Paid Less Than Men,” by Tara Siegel Bernard, both provide information about the way women often handle their job offers that may result in unequal pay. This places the blame for the gender wage gap on women, and rejects that idea that women are discriminated against by employers purely based off their sex. In,“How to Attack the Gender Wage Gap? Speak Up,” the author writes about Annie Houle’s  presentation on the gender wage gap. Houle explains that part of the reason women are paid less is because they simply do not ask to be paid more. Though it may not necessarily true, the American society views men as the more assertive sex when compared to women which builds into the message Houle is trying to get across to her audience. What she believes is that women do not get payed as much as men because they are less likely to negotiate for their pay with their employers. In the article it is said that, “In 2003, when Professor Babcock was conducting research for her book, she surveyed Carnegie Mellon graduates of the management school, determining that 13 percent of women had negotiated the salaries in the jobs they’d accepted, versus 52 percent of men”(Bennett). This piece of information suggests that if women were taught negotiation skills, and were more likely to speak up, they would get payed more. Though this may be truthful, there is no evidence that reveals that it would narrow the wage gap by a significant amount, or that discrimination is not involved when women receive their first pay offer. Similar to “How to Attack the Gender Wage Gap? Speak Up,” “Another Reason Why Women May Be Paid Less,” also takes a closer look at a study that examines how negotiation affects women’s  salaries. The article reviews a study that analyzes the raises men and women with identical positions, education, and experience received.  The results of the conducted experiment showed that women were not offered nearly as much of the money that was available for the raise as men did. The article says, ““Whenever research reveals disparities between men’s and women’s pay, there is a common retort: The gap must be due to unobserved differences in men’s and women’s willingness or skill in negotiating pay,” said Maura Belliveau, the study’s author, an associate professor at LIU Post’s College of Management” (Siegel).  The experiment discussed in the article reveals that because employees expect women not to negotiate nearly as much as men do, they are much more likely to offer them less money than what is available.  Employers think that women will more likely be thankful for the small raise than to be unsatisfied and ask for more money. In other words, “paradoxically, managers who give women less pay can think that they are treating women well” (Siegel). As mentioned in the other New York Times article, it may be helpful to narrow the gender wage gap by teaching women to negotiate more, but this still does not indicate how much it would really affect the wage gap. It also does not mean that offering women less money than men because of their unwillingness to negotiate is not discriminatory.

The Time article, “The Truth Behind The Wage Gap” by Kerri Anne Renzulli, also goes against the claim that a large portion of the gender wage gap is due to discrimination. The author opens up her discussion by talking about the stance our former President Obama took on the gender wage gap. The Bureau of Labor Statics had came forward with data that showed women only earned 82 percent of men’s weekly wages in 2012. Obama had said that this was a problem he would like to change during his presidency. Regarding Obama’s stance on the subject, the author of the article said, “While Obama's speech may give the impression that the entire 22¢ gap is the product of gender bias, that's not exactly true” (Renzulli). Renzulli believes that when factors such as years of experience, education, skills, and responsibilities are held constant, the wage gap almost closes completely. The article states, “CONSAD's analysis suggests that the gap shrinks to between 93¢ and 95¢ cents, but that can vary considerably depending on the industry” (Renzulli). Renzulli’s statement cannot be held as credible not only because part of the gender wage gap is still unexplained, but because it still indicates that different professions may value their female employees less than others. As Renzulli mentions, the wage gap varies between industries. Many other studies done reveal that female dominated industries pay less than male dominated industries. An example of a lower paying female dominated occupation is nursing. In order to become a nurse, a person needs to receive a four year degree. The fact that some female dominated industries are valued less regardless of the amount of education needed to pursue a career in that field could be viewed as an example of discrimination. Also, studies like the one discussed in, “The Cost of Being Girl: Gender Earning Differentials in the Early Labor Markets,” that examines salaries of teenagers have proven that gender discrimination in the workforce begins before factors such as experience, education, and maternal duties could even possibly affect the gender wage gap. Therefore, the argument Renzulli provides does not contain enough evidence that gender discrimination does not account for a portion of the wage gap.

After analyzing a variety of research regarding the gender wage gap, it can be concluded that a fairly significant portion of the of gender the wage gap is caused by gender discrimination. The studies revealed that even when holding factors such as age, education, experience, and time taken off work as constants, a portion of the wage gap is still unaccounted for. The only explanation that could be made to make sense of this information is that women are experiencing gender discrimination through the denial of opportunity to earn as much money as their male counterparts. This is important for our society to recognize, because in this modern age, there are more female headed households than there has ever been before. Many women struggle to provide for themselves, and their families, so the gender wage gap is impacting women’s lives in a negative way all over the country. America is a country based off the idea of freedom, and equal opportunity, and by underpaying American female citizens, the country is neglecting these values. 
