Economics of Race and Gender - Term Paper Example

 Introduction Gender bias in American society and economy is a hot issue finding some relevance in all spheres of life. It is a fact that women are discriminated against by not awarded equal salary to men. They don’t get jobs in certain professions assumed to be a forte of men. Recently, women are pursuing higher studies in good numbers and are giving competition to men in getting jobs. They have leveraged from their high education background and survived the recession by saving their jobs while a good number of men had to lose their jobs on the education criterion. Their main argument is genuine that they are not being given pay checks equal to their male counterparts. Body The very reason that Equal Pay Day is being recognized by the Bethlehem branch of the American Association of University Women at Moravian College on 20th of April 2010 in the Haupert Union Building on the North Campus points towards the current need to bridge the wage gap between the salaries of men and women. Funds were raised by holding a bake sale selling cookies in 77 cents to women and same cookies in $1 to women because according to the U.S. Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics, women working full time earn 77 cents against each dollar earned by men (McNamara 2010). According to Susan S. McNamara, a retired college administrator of Bethlehem Township and president of AAUW, the wage gap has decreased the real median income of women by more than half million dollars in comparison to men since 1960. This wage gap is more widened in the case of minority women. In comparison to white men, minority African-American women earn 67 cents while African-American men earn 78 cents on the dollar. Hispanic women earn even lower, 58 cents (McNamara 2010). The reason of selecting 20th of April as Equal Pay Day was to know how much more time women require in a year to earn equal to what men earned the previous year – about additional four months! A number of facilities have been gained through legislation on making of Family and Medical Leave Act and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act besides favorable policies like flextime and telecommuting, which are equally beneficial for employed women and their employers but in the matter of equal pay checks women still are far behind men (McNamara 2010). From economic point of view, according to Catherine Hill, senior research associate at the AAUW Educational Foundation, “There's a gap here that economists agree can't be explained away by women's choices. What we want to do is continue to take an active role in changing the persistent inequity in women's paychecks by learning about the real roots issue, relying on facts over rhetoric, and creating work environments that are conducive to all workers with family responsibilities, regardless of gender” (McNamara 2010). Wage discrimination negatively impacts women’s earning potential; they get reduced benefits of Social Security and pension schemes, thus, saving less for their retirement and necessities of life like buying a house or affording college education. Women working for 35 years, according to a new research, get their income decreased by $210,000, which is quite huge (McNamara 2010). Incidentally, higher education has saved women from the worst in the recession by avoiding job losses. Women are getting ready and reaching the equal platform where men are standing in the matter of higher education. The trend of gaining higher degree has provided the benefits of education by protecting women from loosing their jobs but they still are not standing the equal platform in the matter of earning wages (Yen 2010). Women are not far behind men in getting a bachelor degree, as 29 percent of women of or above the age of 25 carry a bachelor degree in comparison to 30 percent men holding a bachelor degree, as per the 2009 census figures. Women are already ahead of men in holding undergraduate degrees by 1.2 million on a rough estimate although they are far behind men in subjects like business, science, and engineering. According to Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan-Flint, and a visiting faculty at the American Enterprise Institute, “It won't be long before women dominate higher education and every degree level up to Ph.D. They are getting the skills that will protect them from future downturns” (Yen 2010). The number of young women getting admission in colleges has been increasing since 1980s but with the growth in the spread of educational benefits upward to higher age-groups, its after-effects are more number of working mothers, increasing demand of child care agencies, and attention on the issue of less pay packages (Yen 2010). Weekly income of women has increased by reaching to 80.2 percent of the income of men; it is a little more than what it was in 2008 but is still lower than the 81 percent high of 2005. The increasing number of women getting higher education is good news but the reason of it is discrimination in wages, which is provoking women to reach the ladder high. Such a scenario is good for demanding change by women in the work places by asking for equity to men in pay scales. Otherwise also, women in the U.S. among adults of 25 years and above far outnumber men by 103 million to 96 million (Yen 2010). In employment rates women are going ahead of men in the nation’s work force in the current recession-hit scenario that some researchers are naming it “man-cession.” It is because of large scale retrenchment of employees with less schooling in certain male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing due to housing fiasco. This relief of not loosing jobs seems to be short-lived, as jobs in other sectors where a good number of women are employed like in state and local government offices, effects of recession will be acutely felt. Women will be facing challenges from men in women-dominated industries like nursing and teaching, as men are opting to get degrees in women fields because recession has impacted these industries less than other sectors (Yen 2010). Women at present are less unemployed than men due to recession, standing at 8.6 percent to 10.7 percent men. The difference of 2.1 percentage point is less than what it was in August, a record 2.7 percent but considering the previous three recessions when the possibility of women not working was equal to men, this gap of 2.1 remains higher (Yen 2010). The findings point towards a shift in the conservative role of the sexes caused to a good extent by huge loss of jobs in the recession. The result is seen in increased number of working mothers who are the only economic support in their families, reduction in birth rates, and a little increase in stay-at-home fathers (Yen 2010). Women are realizing the importance of training and higher education. They are in the line for searching jobs after retirement, as recession has resulted in lay off their husbands’ jobs and created a crunch of money compelling women to hunt suitable jobs. They are trying their hands in boosting their careers by joining new courses and at the same time earning for the family to compete with others in the tough time (Yen 2010). Doing a closer analysis of the controversial gender discrimination, nothing can be assumed without reaching the hard facts, as in the matter of theatre business, men are blamed for female playwrights not getting nice treatment. Emily Glassberg Sands, an economics student at Princeton, wrote a paper called “Opening the Curtain on Playwright Gender: An Integrated Economic Analysis of Discrimination in American Theater” making a stunning revelation that more than their male counterparts, female playwrights were discriminated by female artistic directors and literary managers. An analysis of the 329 new plays enacted between 1999 and 2009 by Ms Sands revealed that only 11% of the plays were written completely by women authors but recorded 18% more profit than plays written by male authors. According to Ms. Sands, it is “evidence of employer discrimination on Broadway.” It seems that Ms. Sands is speaking the voice of women playwrights. Only one woman playwright, Yasmina Reza’s play could see the Broadway light. Ms. Nottage whose play “Ruined” won the Pulitzer prize for drama could not enact it on Broadway although it was quite successful Off-Broadway. Ms. Nottage who is black, remarked that “Gender and race play a large part.” But there are certain other important acts to be considered before blaming it all on gender bias. Take the number of male playwrights, which is double the number of women playwrights. As per Ms. Sands’ finding, “women are about equally likely as men to have their scripts reach production.” It shows that gender discrimination is not the sole reason of plays of women playwrights produced less (Teachout 2009). Taking a closer look at the plays enacted at the 2008-09 Broadway season, it can be substantiated that Broadway plays a safe game, and it means that plays written by women are not safe from business point of view. Except Ms. Nottage, no other women playwrights have such plays that could be enacted on the Broadway. If women playwrights want their plays to be shown on the Broadway, they should write middle-of-the-road stories that could be sold the commercial way. It is a hard to digest fact but truth, not gender bias (Teachout 2009). Conclusion Women need to fight a long battle in the matter of parity to men on earning equal wages by getting support politically to amend the law by passing the legislation. There are certain professions where they have performed beyond expectations. We cannot deny gender bias is not there in American society but as we see that all professions cannot be looked from the same angle. Recession has benefitted women more in saving their jobs because of getting the leverage of higher education. They need to give a stiff competition to men to be in the race to defeat them sporting way by going high on the ladder, as they are doing by getting training and education. At the same time, fight should be fought on different platforms, as there is no place of any sort of discrimination on any ground in a democracy like America. Bibliography Kaufman, Jonathan. “Race May Be Playing Role For Working-Class Voters.” Wall Street Journal, March 6, 2008. McNamara, Susan S. “Equal Pay Day is a reminder that women's earnings lag behind men.” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2010. Teachout, Terry. “Does Broadway Need Women? A closer look at that controversial gender-bias study.” The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2009, 6:36 A.M. ET Yen, Hope. “Man-cession? Gains in education help women avert worst of job losses in downturn, for now.” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2010, 12:23 p.m. CDT. Yen, Hope. “Census says women equal to men in advanced degrees.” Chicago Tribune, April 20, 2010, 12:32 p.m. EST. Read More