The gender pay gap is the difference between men’s and women’s average gross hourly wages. It is based on pay given directly to employees and excludes deductions for social security and income taxes. Only enterprises with ten or more employees are included in the calculations. The gender wage gap results from structural issues, including employment, education, and work experience discrepancies. The gender pay gap, according to Blau & Kahn, may be explained by disparities in human capital and employment discrimination (2020, p. 345). After this amount is subtracted, what is left is the gender wage gap as adjusted. However, Larraz et al. assert that adhering to gender guidelines does not result in a more evenly distributed income for men and women(2019). Closing the gender pay gap and increasing the hiring and advancement of women are likely outcomes of taking specific action.
First, there needs to be diversity among the women who apply for jobs and get promoted. Secondly, using exercises for skill-based recruiting assessment. Instead of depending on interviews, they require candidates to do tasks that would be required of them in the position they are applying for. Judging a candidate’s appropriateness based on how effectively they perform those tasks, treating all applicants equally, and standardizing the scoring criteria.
Using formal interviews for recruiting and promotion is the third step. Both organized and unstructured interviews have benefits and drawbacks, but unstructured interviews are more likely to let unfair bias creep in and influence conclusions. It is ideal to use structured interviews, where the same questions are asked of each candidate in a preset order and format, and the answers are assessed using a set of agreed-upon criteria. As a result, responses are more evenly distributed, and unconscious bias is lessened. The reasons for the gender wage gap can be divided into two categories: discrimination against women in the workplace and gender disparities in qualifications (Blau, 2018, p. 929).
Finally, one might promote pay haggling by providing compensation ranges. In part, because they lose interest if they are dubious of a fair offer, women are less likely than men to negotiate a raise. Pay inequality is the most frequently reported kind of discrimination (Graf et al., 2018). To encourage women to negotiate their compensation, employers should be open and honest about the salary range they give. The applicant is then better able to comprehend what is realistic to anticipate. If employers want to encourage women to negotiate job salaries, they need to be clear about it. If women negotiate their salaries more, their income will be closer to that of men.
Economic growth will be stimulated by raising women’s employment rates and closing the pay gap between them and men. Despite recent progress in these areas, women still have lower employment rates than men do in the labor market, which may limit growth. The reduction of the pay gap primarily has no impact on GDP. On the one hand, higher compensation encourages more women to enter the workforce, increasing the economy’s capacity for output and adding to the number of jobs available. Women also receive lower amounts of extra advantages like sickness and life insurance, according to Miller & Vagins, as these are typically based on earnings (2018). Increases in female labor market participation may have positive employment consequences, and salary increases for women help close the activity rate gap. On the other hand, there are fewer jobs available as a result of businesses lowering their demand for labor as a result of rising labor costs.
When women’s work is valued, acknowledged as equal to that of their male peers, and compensated appropriately, they are less likely to experience poverty. Additionally, they have easier access to higher and earlier education and institutions of learning, which all contribute to the household’s eventual economic prosperity. When women are compensated fairly and valued for their work, everyone wins. The benefits are significant and pervasive. The trend toward workplace equality seems inevitable, even though it is unlikely to happen overnight, and there are probably more trends and activities growing around compensation
References
Blau, F. (2018). The sources of the gender pay gap. In Social Stratification (pp. 929-941). Routledge.
Blau, F. D., & Kahn, L. M. (2020). The gender pay gap: Have women gone as far as they can? In Inequality in the United States: A Reader (pp. 345-362). Routledge.
Graf, N., Brown, A., & Patten, E. (2018). The narrowing but the persistent gender gap in pay. Pew Research Center, 9. Web.
Larraz, B., Pavía, J. M., & Vila, L. E. (2019). Beyond the gender pay gap. Convergencia, 26(81). Web.
Miller, K., & Vagins, D. J. (2018). The simple truth about the gender pay gap. American Association of University Women.