Women Vs. Men In The Work Force Essay, Research Paper

In Mrs. Burrows? 7th grade English category, I wrote a paper entitled Women vs. Men in the Work Force. I researched for hebdomads and hebdomads to acquire all of the information I could on wage differences, per centums of working adult females and what occupations they were making.

In 1988, my paper focused on sexual favoritism and the pay difference. For illustration, in 1998, ? adult females received 63 % of the wage work forces received for the same job. ? I remember happening that out and inquiring my pa why that was go oning. My male parent, parent of two girls who instructed them ne’er to be dependent on a adult male, did non hold a good account for this inequality.

Sexual favoritism was merely get downing to be a hot subject in 1988. Here is my favourite quotation mark from my paper:

? Sixty-two per centum of working adult females who are employed full-time believe that favoritism prevents them from acquiring top occupations in concern and authorities. Sexual favoritism seems to happen the most. For illustration, one female executive on her manner to the top told of how she fought back. She and some of her male co-workers were in a concern meeting when they started to pull the leg of her about her short skirts. In reaction to their joking, she put a shapely leg up onto the tabular array and asked her rival whether or non he saw anything incorrect with it. This unusual rejoinder won her points from her antagonists. Womans who have reached top corporate places have said that acquiring used to such joking is one of the hardest jobs to get the better of in an executive occupation. ?

Joking is one of the hardest jobs to get the better of in an executive occupation? It seems so fiddling compared to issues such as the slowly shrinkage pay spread, new family-friendly company benefits, and the of all time popular gimmick phrase the? glass-ceiling? .

I have found that the three P? s are chief issues for today? s working adult female seeking to hold it all. The three P? s are Pay, Position and Parenting.

I. Pay

Despite the fact that the Equal Pay Act was signed more than 35 old ages ago, full-time working adult females between the ages of 25 and 35 earn merely 84 % of the hebdomadal net incomes of work forces their age. Alexis Herman, Secretary of the US Department of Labor, has the following to state: ? This coevals of adult females has invested greatly in instruction, returned rapidly to the labour force after child birth, held more full clip occupations and sought more untraditional occupations than any in our state? s history. Their mere presence in the labour force has transformed our work civilization, spurred new industries, and infused the state? s labour force with a ready supply of educated and skilled workers. It is hard to conceive of our state? s economic system without them. ?

Indeed, working adult females have come a long manner since 1963 when the pay spread stood at 59 % . In 1997, the ratio was down to 26 % . The enlargement of the female labour force in the 1960? s and 1970? s mostly reflected the entry of married adult females into the labour force, particularly those with kids. In 1960, merely a one-fourth of married adult females with kids worked or was looking for work. By 1975, 44 % of married female parents were in the labour force. The Numberss of adult females graduating signifier college and alumnus school grew every bit good. In 1960, 35 % of all unmarried mans and first professional grades were awarded to adult females. By 1975, 45 % of all unmarried mans? grades went to adult females. Womans? s? lifting degree of instruction and experience in the labour market, and their turning portion of better-paying managerial and professional occupations have been critical in increasing adult females? s existent net incomes during the 1980? s and keeping their degree during the 1990? s. Yet, even with these good-paying occupations, adult females? s mean net incomes have non reached those of work forces. 1997 Bureau of Labor Statistics has weekly pay informations demoing that adult females earned less than work forces in 99 % of all businesss for which information is available.

I have had first manus experience with this pay spread. Recently, our little electrical catching house ( about 15 office employees and 120 field employees ) hired the president? s brother, Jim, to execute buying and histories collectible undertakings. He had worked in the warehouse of one of our big oil clients and was being downsized. He is thirtiess with no college instruction. The occupation he was being hired for was reasonably consecutive forward and had a batch of room for him to better the manner we did things. As the office director, I was to supervise and develop him in the histories collectible part of his occupation. When I asked for his employment bundle to come in paysheet information, I was shocked to see that he was hired at $ 2000 more a twelvemonth than myself. ( Which is a pretty penny with the sum of money I make. ) I let it travel and figured that he was deserving it and would so be worth this sum.

Four months subsequently, he has created more work for my helper, the receptionist, the Controller and myself. We have had to take the histories collectible map off from him to avoid aggregations and dump it on the freshly hired receptionist. Ironically, the receptionist is a adult female who earns much less than Jim besides and is making a terrific occupation. His occupation has been cut in half, he does a awful occupation, and yet will ne’er be fired due to the nepotism issue.

Meanwhile, the three adult females in the company ( my helper, the receptionist and myself ) are among the lowest paid forces in the company.

Education degrees for adult females at the undergraduate and Masterss degree degrees began to fit those of work forces in 1981 and 1982. Net incomes for college educated adult females eventually began to excel those of work forces who had non attended college. In my instance, this is non true even today with the state of affairs I face. Both my helper and myself have AA grades and I will hold my BS in Business this spring. As I stated earlier, Jim has merely a high school sheepskin and a brother who owns the company. Obviously, the nepotism facet is more of import than quality work.

Among adult females in the 25 to 34 twelvemonth age group, the Fieldss that led to the best earning ratios within businesss were: accounting, chemical science, computing machine and information scientific disciplines, technology, mathematics and pharmaceutics.

Additions for immature, extremely educated and motivated adult females without kids have been impressive so. However, as economic expert Katha Pollitt has pointed out, ? immature work forces and adult females have ever had net incomes more comparable than those of their seniors. Get downing wages are by and large low, and do non accurately reflect the advantages that accrue, or neglect to accrue, over clip as work forces progress and adult females stay in topographic point, or as adult females in largely female sorts of occupations reach the terminal of characteristically short calling waies. ?

II. Position

Another noteworthy manner adult females are doing paces in the work topographic point is in footings of place. As engineering re-invents the manner we do concern, clerical occupations are going more proficient, leting adult females in these places to boom. Two such adult females who have made enormous advancement were late featured in the Wall Street Journal.

Peoples like Sharon Leahy, a Vice President for Tri-United Co, have morphed the secretary? s function into a place of greater duty and authorization. This new function goes by many names: executive helper, office professional and even frailty president. Ms. Leahy? s occupation was developed over more than two decennaries with her company into a direction place. She is a Vice President, Operations, Office Manager and Executive Assistant to the CEO, Mr. Moshe Menora. Her calling illustrates that dead-end occupations are frequently in the oculus of the perceiver. She has shown with some expectancy, aspiration and assertiveness, you can make new challenges for yourself by re-thinking the dimensions of your occupation.

Another adult female who has made inroads on the international forepart is Monique Maddy. As portion of a alumnus plan at Harvard, she decided to analyze the commercial P

otential for expanded phone service in Tanzania. Alternatively of holing up in a library, she led a squad of six pupils to Africa for a three-month probe ; a $ 100,000 venture she financed by selling her research in progress to Sprint, Motorola, GE and Lockheed Martin.

Finally, after about traveling belly-up and fracturing her leg in a running accident, Adesemi Communications International has 1000 radio wage phones in Tanzania and contracts in Ghana and Sri Lanka are at hand. The company is besides developing wireless booths for Internet entree and will hose web pages enabling craftsmans, husbandmans, and other little clip enterprisers to put up store in a planetary market place.

As seen with Ms. Maddy, the tendency towards adult females owned concerns has had phenomenal growing. In 1977, adult females owned fewer than 1 million concerns. By 1992, they owned about 6.4 million. Today, that figure has increased to 8 million? one tierce of all houses. Women-owned concerns contribute in grosss $ 2.3 trillion yearly in grosss to the economic system and use one out of every five US workers? 18.5 million.

In the last few old ages, some adult females? s leaders have commented that the go oning being of the glass ceiling has fueled the sky rocketing growing in woman-owned concerns. A February 1998 survey by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners found that 29 % of adult females concern proprietors with corporate experience said that? glass ceiling issues? were important in actuating them to get down their ain company.

III. Rearing

Most on the job adult females in the US have kids at some point in their premier on the job old ages. In 1997, 40 % of all working adult females had kids under the age of 18 at place. New female parents are returning to the work force Oklahoman after holding kids and are more likely to go on working for wage than they are to go housewifes and attention for their ain kids entirely. In 1996, 54 % of adult females were back on the occupation by their babe? s foremost birthday, while 63 % of mas with 2-year-old kids held paying occupations.

During the late 1980? s and 1990? s, the proportion of households maintained by adult females increased greatly. In 1997, adult females maintained 18 % of all households. In these households, adult females? s net incomes made up 75 % of entire household income. Child support or public aid, we can presume, likely provides the other 25 % .

This engagement of female parents in the work force has led to the new gimmick phrase of the 1990? s? ? household friendly? workplaces. Recently, The Today Show featured Fannie Mae as a household friendly workplace on their MSNBC web site. Fannie Mae, the state? s largest supplier of financess for place mortgages, was included for the 4th clip on MSNBC? s list of household friendly concerns. Females ( 1838 ) staff 56 per centum of the company.

Some of the benefits for employees of Fannie Mae include:

1. Work at place plans

2. Job sharing

3. Flextime

4. Compressed workweeks

5. Part-time benefits

Other household friendly benefits are:

1. An on site kid attention centre in Washington DC. The company covers 100 % of the operating costs of the centre. It provides after school, vacation and summer plans.

2. Provides backup kid attention subsidies, pre-tax set asides, reimbursement of kid attention costs for concern travel and overtime, and ill kid yearss.

3. Leave for child birth, paternity leave, acceptance aid, clip off for R & A ; R

4. Net income sharing with company matched financess, scholarships for kids of employees, 100 % wellness insurance coverage for employees and 50-100 % for dependants, elder attention and more.

Another site entitled KidsCampaign by the Benton Foundation has 101 ways to better your workplace. Number 53 is entitled: The first measure to doing your company household friendly: Establish a checklist of ends. On this page, it defines a household friendly company as? a company that provides a occupation to a parent who would otherwise be without employment. ?

I took the quiz offered to see if my company was household friendly. The quiz included about 20 characteristics that a household friendly company might offer. Some of the characteristics include schedule flexibleness, health care, clip off, occupation sharing, etc. However, the first characteristic was compensation. ? If your company is paying adult females less than work forces for comparable work, it? s aching kids? peculiarly the kids of individual female parents. Ironically, two out of the three adult females in our company are individual female parents.

Another job I have encountered at my company is the hiring of individual female parents with little kids. Presently, the two individual female parents at the company both have older kids. Recently, before these two adult females were hired, we had legion adult females, all with little kids, who invariably missed work because of the kids. In the interview, they offered the information about being a individual female parent and vouch it non to be a job or interfere with their work agenda ( 8 to 5, Monday through Friday ) . In every instance ( 4 adult females entire ) , they missed work excessively much and were let travel because if it. Now, my foreman will non engage any individual female parent, period.

Another illustration of this sort of intervention is one I heard tonight from a fellow schoolmate. She is a individual adult female with no kids, engaged and about to complete her grade in the spring. She works in a male dominated field and is looking to travel up within her little company after graduation. Her foreman, a good friend of the household and an all-round nice cat, level out stated that the first thing he thinks when he has hired adult females in the yesteryear is about the gestation issue. Will she acquire pregnant and need a batch of clip off, coercing me to engage impermanent aid and bing me money. This is the quandary confronting individual female parents and employers today.

As we move into the new millenary, we must pay a multi-faceted attempt for equity. We must beef up and implement smartly our Torahs against pay favoritism. We must shatter the glass ceiling so adult females can vie reasonably for well-paying occupations in concern, authorities and other spheres. More companies need to acknowledge the demand for household friendly workplaces to suit both work forces and adult females who are responsible for a household.

The conflict for equal wage, places and the ever-increasing consciousness of the importance of rearing issues within the company continues to better the quality of life for all working work forces and adult females. I hope that in ten old ages I can compose

Women vs. Men in the Work Force? Part Three and demo that the pay spread has been sewn shut with the yarn of economic equality.

& # 183 ; BIBLIOGRAPHY & # 183 ;

Castro, Ida. Equal Wage: A Thirty-five Year Perspective. US Department of Labor

www.dol.gov/dol/wb/

Conshafter, Jana. Women vs. Men in the Work Force. Mrs. Burrows? seventh-grade English category at Actis Jr. High, Bakersfield, California. 1988

Lancaster, Hal. Sharon Leahy Turned Her Clerical Position Into a Management Position. Wall Street Journal. September 23, 1998.

Petzinger, Thomas. Monique Maddy Uses Wireless Pay Phones to Battle Poverty. Wall Street Journal. September 25, 1998.

Post, Lawrence and Weber. Business and Society: Corporate Strategy, Public Policy, Ethics. Irwin McGraw-Hill. Ninth edition, 1998.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Handbook of Labor Statistics, 1989

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, January 1998

www.census.gov/income/histinc/p13.html

www.kidscampaigns.org/hot/early/workplaces.html

www.msnbc.com

& # 183 ; NOTES & # 183 ;

Table 1 beginning: Economic Census Women-Owned Businesses, selected issues