The Class Economics of Race and Gender - Essay Example

and Section # of Economics of Race and Gender a. Discuss how important Diversity is in any givenSociety. How this class (Economics of Race and Gender) has contributed to your understanding of the economic impact of Diversity. Diversity plays an important role in any society. We live in a globalized world where we interact with people from different cultures and race on a daily basis. To be successful in life and our careers we need to understand the differences between people and try and bridge that gap. There are many multinational companies which are operating in many countries, diversity for them is very important. They can benefit from a diverse workforce, because when people belong to different ethnic groups or cultures they hold different opinions. These opinions can help bring new solutions to the same old problems. This class, Economics of Race and Gender has helped me understand how important diversity is to a country and the businesses that operate in that country. Diversity does not only impact the social structure within an economy but it also impacts the educational structure, economic structure and the legal structure. Race and Gender have evolved over the years, previously women and people from ethnic minorities did not interact with the general population, they did minor jobs and the women stayed at home. Times have changed now, women get out of their homes more often and ethnic minorities have more legal rights than the general population. b. Discuss in full details the advantages and disadvantages of the Group Presentations. Remember to state your own participation. The advantages of group presentations are that they are an easier method to help the students understand what is being taught. It allows the students to conduct research on the topic before hand. These presentations encourage discussions in class and students can question their fellow students more easily then they can question the professor. The disadvantages are that it is usually only that group which needs to present that goes over the topic and conducts research. Other students may become complacent and not take an interest in the class. c. Discuss the overview of the three movies presented in class. The three movies presented in class were: Freedom Writers, Rossie the Riveter and Crash. Freedom Writers is a movie about a teacher who inspires her class to write about their daily lives. The students come from poor backgrounds and have experienced much pain in life, they are discouraged and violent, and the teacher asks them to write about their daily lives and things which have happened to them in the past, events which altered their lives. She compiles these diaries into a book and gets them published into a book. These children with the help of their teacher learn some lesson of life such as to be tolerant. Rossie the Riveter revolves around a woman who worked in the factories at a time when women would hardly leave the house. This woman would take up jobs which were done by men and would even be a part of the military. Many characters have played Rosie either in television series or commercials. This movie revolves around women empowerment. Crash is a movie which revolves around racial stereotypes and bigotry. The movie shows a crash of multiple cars and then shows the lives of all the individuals who are involved in the crash. All the people in the movie have dual roles; they are heroes as well as villains. Each person has experienced some for of discrimination and takes out their frustration on other people. There are many lessons to learn from this movie, people are not always what they seem and what you do to others may be done to you too. d. Discuss why have women been increasingly eager to move into men’s occupations? Why do you think men generally show less enthusiasm about moving into women’s occupations? In historic days the position of women in a couple or in society was that she was considered lesser than men in status. During industrialization and the World War 2, women came outside their homes to help men and the soldiers who were injured. They gained this freedom in a step by step manner, after many efforts. Women are eager to move into men’s occupations because they still want to prove that they are equal to men; that they can do any job that a man can do. Unconsciously there are still many jobs that are not awarded to women because people think that they might not be able to do the job effectively. This makes it more frustrating for women, especially those women who treasure their career. Also, men’s occupations generally have a higher pay with more benefits, while women’s occupations are those which do not have higher pays or field work. For example; women’s occupations can be teaching or Social Work, while men’s occupations include jobs like Sales, Marketing, or pilot etc. Men are not so willing to move into women occupations because this would go against their male ego. Most men do not consider women’s occupations as manly enough to be pursued by them. Those men who do pursue these careers are made fun of by their male colleagues and friends. e. Explain the following Economic Terms: a. Occupational Segregation Occupational Segregation is the concentration of men and women in different kinds of jobs and in different grades of jobs, the segregation can be measured in two ways, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal is the ratio of men and women in different types of jobs while vertical segregation is the job grade that women and men hold in comparison to each other. Women and men, both are channeled into different types of jobs based on their gender, this results in two different labor markets existing, one for each. Many people unconsciously take part in occupational segregation, and many jobs and usually high paying jobs are awarded to men over women. Women will be found doing jobs which are more socio-cultural or womanly as they call them. (Marshall G.) b. Index of Segregation Index of segregation is the method which is used to measure occupational segregation. The index is calculated by summing up the differences between the numbers in each pair and then dividing them by 2. The range of the result is 0 to 100 and the answer always comes out positive. It indicates that proportion of cases which would need to be reallocated so that the two distributions are the same. The two key weaknesses of this index are that is cannot measure more than two groups at a time, and it is aspatial, i.e. it cannot identify the spatial patterns relating to segregation but can only identify relative degrees to which segregation takes place in a situation or city.( Marshall G.) c. Gender Earnings Ratio Gender Earnings Ratio is the ratio of the earnings of men and women. Men generally tend to earn more than women. Even if both the man and the woman would be at the same job grade level, it is the man who would earn more than the woman. During times of recession we can see the wage gap narrow because overtime payments and bonuses are cut back. For men these bonuses and payments account for a reasonable share of their income. Women in general earn around 70 percent of what men do, especially in the year 2009. (Institute of Women’s Policy Research) d. Labor Market Discrimination Labor market discrimination is when the employer offers different workers different wage rates even though they have the same job description and the same qualifications and expertise. This discrimination is done on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender and skin color. The employer may not give one employee a promotion or an increase because he does not belong to same social class as the other employee or belongs to a different race or ethnicity than the employer. This discrimination can take three forms; pure discrimination, occupational segregation, or statistical discrimination. There are glass ceiling which are present and employers only let those pass this glass ceiling which fit the cultural and social bill, others are not allowed to pass their ceiling and continue to work under it. f. It is claimed that employers are reluctant to hire women for some jobs because of their higher expected quit rates. Assuming women are more likely to quit, use human capital theory to explain what kind of jobs an employer would be especially reluctant to hire women for. Explain the reasons for the employer’s reluctance. How valid do you think such employer assumptions about women today? Some employers are reluctant to hire women for some jobs because they think that they will quit. The human capital theory says that the worth of the employee is through his capacity to produce economic worth. This is possible when the employee has the education, experience, knowledge, personality and the necessary competencies to do the job. The employer is reluctant to hire a woman for the following jobs, keeping in mind the human capital theory; for example women would not be hired for work that requires hard labor such as construction or mining, or those jobs which do not require a lot of training so as to reduce their turnover costs, jobs which require a lot of travelling or which require the employee to put in overtime. The employer is less willing to hire women because they think that she will leave once she has a child or will at least take a maternity leave. Also because employers think that women are not committed to their work and for them family always comes first, thus they do not want to hire women because she will not put in extra time or will not be able to travel at a short notice. The assumptions held by the employer about women today are not true; women are equally competent to do any job. If they are given the chance they are more productive and put in extra effort to get the job done. Women do not take promotions and positive feedbacks for granted, they want to prove themselves and live up to the expectations of other people. Once men achieve success they become complacent and forget about the importance of their work. g. Describe the main changes in the typical family in the United States over the past 30 –40 years and explain their causes. The typical family in the United States has evolved in the past 30 – 40 years. Previously, a couple would have more than two children and would visit their brothers and sisters and parents often. There was a tendency towards a joint family system. Both the parents would not be working and the mother would usually be at home to spend time with the children. Now we see the nuclear family concept which consists of parents and their 2 children or sometimes even 1 child. Both the parents work and do not have enough time to give to the child. Each and every member of the family has his or her own life and does not want other people to interfere in it. The children spend time with their friends or at school, the parents have their own social life and there is very less interaction between all the members of the family. Work takes a preference over family at all times. Previously, family was important and people would take out time especially to spend time with the whole family. There would be reunions and children would not send their elderly parents to old age or retirement homes. Nowadays, children do not want to keep their elderly parents with them because they do not want to have to quit work or out in the extra effort. They prefer to send their parents to these homes, instead of keeping them with themselves. h. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the rising age of first marriage? There is a general trend among men and women of today to not get married at a young age, i.e. the age for first marriages is increasing. Both the man and the woman want to take their time and settle down in their careers before they want to take the leap for marriage. This has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are; the couple is more of what they want in life, both the woman and the man have a stable career which can support them financially and can help them start a new life with each other. Men and women get married when they are sure that they have met the person with whom they want to spend the rest of their lives. They do not get forced into marriages and they are taking with this decision with a lot of caution. The disadvantages are; when couples get married at a later age, it might be difficult to start a family and once women cross the age of 35 there is a higher chance that they child will have Down’s syndrome. Also, later marriages increase the generation gap between parents and their children which causes many problems when the children grow up. Till the time that the couple does not decide to marry they live together and this may reduce the need for them to get married. Also the importance of family has diminished and people do not give marriage the same sanctity as before. The importance of marriage is decreasing. i. In recent year, child support enforcement was stepped up considerably. Explain the pros and cons of this policy change. In recent years, child support enforcement has been stepped up considerably. The pros of this policy change are: that both parents are contributing to the child’s expenses and this reduces the burden on one parent. It also gives the child the benefit to enjoy a better life as it increases the financial strength of the child and allows him to get a better education and facilities. The cons of this policy change are that sometimes the parents experience varying financial situations and may not be able to pay the full amount which has been ordered by the Court. Also, the parents should pay this amount willingly and should be forced by any entity to have to pay for their child’s expenses. j. Explain a. AFDC b. TANF c. Earned Income Credit d. Dependent Care Tax Credit e. Child Tax Credit a. AFDC Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) is a program initiated by the United States Department of Health and Human Services. The agenda of this program is to provide assistance to families which have a low income or no income at all. The program started out to give aid to dependent children but the phrase families with was added when there was a growing concern that this program discouraged marriage. b. TANF Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a program which succeeded the AFDC program. This program was initiated in 1997 with the agenda to provide cash assistance to families which had dependent children. There was a difference in the amount that was awarded to families depending upon the state in which they resided. c. Earned Income Credit Earned Income Credit is a refundable tax credit which is meant to provide help to the low paid worker. There are specific amounts that a person can receive depending on the number of qualifying children that they have. Earned income comes from wages, salaries, gross salary, any disability payments, or any earnings from self employment. d. Dependent Care Tax Credit The dependent care tax credit is a non-refundable tax credit which is awarded to the taxpayers. If there is a qualifying individual under the care of a taxpayer, then the taxpayer can receive this benefit. This incentive is allowed because there are many expenses which are incurred when taking care of a dependent such as the cost of hiring a babysitter. This credit is usually awarded to single parent homes because they do not have the extra cash to hire such services. e. Child Tax Credit The child tax credit is awarded to people who have a higher number of children in their family who are dependent on their parents. Another factor which is taken into consideration is the income level of the family, when choosing which families to award this tax credit to. These credits are allowed to encourage people to have children as the developed countries have low birth rates and an aging population. They need more young people. k. To what extent and how did economic factors influence the following a. Your decision to attend College. Economic factors played a huge part in my decision to attend college, mainly because the economy was in a recession and there were not many job opportunities available. Also there is an increasing need for skilled labor, without a college education, I would not fall into the skilled labor category. There is a lot of competition from employees around the world, the supply of labor has increased and companies have a greater market to choose from. b. Your choice of major. My choice of major was affected by economic factors because I see a need in companies to understand such cultural issues. These issues need to be targeted and it is helpful for a company to hire an employee who is proficient in cultural studies. It ensures that the employee will be more open and considerate to employees of other cultures and would encourage diversity. c. Your plans to go on or not to go on to graduate work. Graduate work helps refine a student; it gives them the chance to get the experience they need before officially stepping into the job market. The economic situation did affect my decision whether or not to go to graduate work because it depended on the economic situation whether or not I would get an opportunity to undertake graduate work. d. Would you expect any of these considerations to differ between men and women, if so why? I do not think that any of the above considerations would differ between men and women especially in today’s world. Women are considered to have the same importance and position in society as men, the job market is equally tough for them as it is for men. Works Cited Marshall G. “Definitions” Encyclopedia.com Date Accessed May 7, 2010 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O88-dissimilarityindexof.html Institute of Women’s Policy Research, “The Gender Wage Gap – 2009” Date Accessed May 7, 2010, http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/C350.pdf Read More