Mini Exam 4 Flashcards
Gender Wage Gap
What is the gender wage gap?
The difference between the median wages of the average man and the average women who work full-time, year-round
Misconceptions About the Gender Wage Gap
It does not exist
It’s simply a reflection of women’s choices and preferences about work
A result of overt-based gender discrimination
Gender wage gap only affects cisgender women
What Explains the Wage Gap?
41% of the gender gap cannot be explained
Job segregation: 49%
Labor force experience: 10%
Unexplained (likely discrimination): 41%
2 reasons why the gap narrows over time
women’s rising wages since 1970s
loss of men’s income in same period)
What does the trend of race/ethnicity say?
Women of all races make less than their male counterparts, but the size of the gap varies by race
How does age depict a trend?
The wage gap appears and widens sharply through the 20s and 30s
Why: Children/Family
women are burdened with childcare and the labor at home, which creates inflexibility in their job
Social pressures in the workplace - especially from employers
Certain assumptions are made about women with children which allows for lower pay
Where is the gap largest in terms of education?
The gap is largest among college-educated men and women who earn professional degrees
What 3 things explain the gender wage gap?
Gendered job Segregation
Gender Discrimination
Practice and Ideology of Parenting
What is gendered job segregation?
The practice of filling occupations with mostly men or mostly women workers
Jobs are not naturally gendered
Where is there job segregation?
Between Occupations and Industries
Within Occupations and Industries
Where does job segregation come from? (3 hypotheses)
Socialization Hypothesis
Employer Selection Hypothesis
Selective Exit Hypothesis
Socialization Hypothesis
men and women respond to gender stereotypes when planning, training, and applying for jobs
Employer Selection Hypothesis
employers tend to prefer men for masculine jobs and women for feminine jobs, slotting applicants into gender-consistent roles during hiring and promotion
Selective Exit Hypothesis
an explanation for job segregation that emphasizes workers’ abandonment of counter-stereotypical occupations
How Does Job Segregation Affect Wages?
Jobs that are strongly male-dominated are among the highest-paying
Women dominate two-thirds of the lowest-paying professions
It has to do with how we value different kinds of labor
Andocentric pay scale
the correlation between wages and the gender composition of a job
Emotional labor
the act of controlling one’s own emotion and managing the emotions of others
Jobs dominated by women tend to be defined as…
outside the realm of work because they are believed to utilize skills seen as coming “naturally” to women
Care Work
Work that involves caretaking of the physical, emotional, and educational needs of others
What does job segregation create and contribute to?
Job segregation doesn’t just create a differentiated workforce; it creates an unequal one
Job segregation contributes to the gender pay gap because we attribute more value to “men’s work” than “women’s work”