A Synopsis on Why do Men Still Earn More than Women?

In the last few decades, two very important socio-economic things happened:

• There was a huge influx of women into the workforce.
• Women made great progress in advancing their education.Click here.
  
  

Despite these developments, men still earn more than women do at the same jobs. This earning gap between men and women is a topic that is discussed and debated upon. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, median weekly earnings for women who worked full time in 2012 were 82.8% of what their male counterparts earned. This has however become less over the last few decades, in 1979, women’s weekly wages were 62.3% of men’s. The question still remains, as to why men continue to earn more than women.

Four main theories have been put forward by experts to explain, why women earn less than men at the same jobs:

• Women are over-represented in jobs that are towards the lower end of the pay scale.
• Women hold the non-pecuniary aspects of a job as more valuable than men do.
• The greater family responsibilities that a women takes care of, sometimes makes them opt for jobs that have a better work-life balance.
• Gender stereotypes in many organizational practices tend to give better value to men’s patterns of employment.

A detailed study and synthesis was done in Canada and here are the key findings from that:

• There has been a decrease in the gender pay gap but it is still significant, even amongst today’s youth.
• The differences in the productive characteristics of women and men, such as education level, occupation practiced, total work experience, number of hours worked, the work sector – all these explain less than a third of the gender pay gap.
• One of the most important explanations for the pay gap comes from the fact that women make certain educational and professional choices, particularly about the fact that their presence is less in certain occupations.
• The differences in productive characteristics of women and men can be explained away less and less as the reason for the pay gap.
• The theory that women are more interested in the non-pecuniary aspects of a job does get some support, but the importance of it is small when compared to educational and professional choices.
• Women without children earn more than working mothers. This is possibly due to maternity and other leave and conflicts between family and work responsibilities.
• Gender stereotypes, while difficult to prove, still exist, at least in some sectors.

Helping women branch out about their educational and professional choices and fighting gender stereotypes might help level out the gender pay gap. A focused effort should be made to ensure that both women and men make better-informed decisions about their career. Family responsibilities should be shared by both women and men. All of these would help in enabling women to have equal pay opportunities as men.