Social structure - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Developments in terms of women getting into paid employment are now evident and women strive to acquire professional skills in different fields, a fact that brings the need to study and understand the experiences of the working woman. Despite the fact that women have employment opportunities alongside men, issues of existence of differences in terms of what the two take home in terms of remuneration. Mostly, the women are discriminated against and receive low pay compared to the men even if the work they do is similar. This report presents the result of a research on the causes of this inequality and suggestion of how the gap between the job pay of men and women can be narrowed. This report is a result of an interview given to four respondents, each giving his reasons for the difference and suggestion for measures that can be employed to reach a solution. The report also relates the respondents’ answers with three theoretical frameworks explaining pay gap by gender. The frameworks are: discrimination, human capital and social structure. On showing the table for the ratios between women’s earnings and men’s earnings in North America, Europe and Japan, 2007 (The conference board of Canada, 2009) to the respondents, the first respondent pointed out that the gap could be as a result of men excelling more than women in school. “Men work hard in school than women, academic performance of men is generally high and so men get better paying jobs than women”, he said., “parents should be encouraged to make consideration of both the boy child and the girl child”, he added. This respondents answer points to human capital as the root cause of the pay gap. From his observation it is revealed that there are gender barriers in schools and work places that affect the women academic life. The second respondent argued that the pay gap was as result of women overdependence on men. “Women in most cases depend on men for household bills hence they don’t strive to advance their educational training thus they remain stuck in low-pay positions”, she argued. “It is time women started advancing in their studies in order to build their careers and share in promotions at their work places” she suggested. This response relates to the human capital theory that exposes the fact that women employ not much commitment to paid work at a time when men invest more in themselves through obtaining more education and intensifying their job training. The third respondent explained the reason for the pay gap from a system’s nature perspective. “The system in place in the employment sector is not conducive for women”, she said. “there are requirements for example in order to get a loan from a financial institution one needs a guarantee usually land title deeds, which most women don’t have thus they don’t get access to capital and consequently do not invest.” She added. This response relates to the social structure theory that explains how the nature of the social structure bars women from owning property. Gender segregation is also evident in work places where it is believed that some jobs are meant for men and so women are not considered fit for the jobs. The social segregation is so much evident in corporate entities and government offices whereby as you move higher the fewer the number of women with positions. As a remedy to this, social segregation should be discouraged in corporate and in government offices. Both men and women should be given opportunities depending on a person’s qualification and not gender. Not even the minority groups should be discriminated against and the society should recognize the woman as an equal contributor in terms of economic growth so that she is given equal work and pay opportunities with men. This step ...Download file to see next pagesRead More