The Untold Truth About Gender Wage Gap

It’s 2022 and women keep making less money than men in any given professional field.?

Why? Let’s break it down to the fundamentals, the unexplored, and the undeniable.?

What Is The Wage Gap

Conceptually speaking, the wage gap is the percentual difference between how much a woman makes for every dollar a man makes in the workforce.

This varies from country to country, and sometimes between professions. Nevertheless, women’s wages are always lower.?

But, is this difference calculated under the perception of their work’s value or their work’s cost?

Unfortunately, the answer here is Value.

Considering that most of the time, the work itself may require--at the very least–equivalent effort and skills comparable to their male peers', why is it that women around the world are not able to get equal pay or remuneration for their valuable work??

In order for us to understand all of these “why’s”, it’s vital to take a look at some of the historical facts leading up to this situation.

A Brief History

Yeah, we know it.?

Women have been segregated in the workforce since a long, long time ago.?This is, evidently, due to sexism and patriarchal traditions, beliefs, and costumes that kept leaking into our culture even nowadays.?

But, let’s fast forward from ancient misogyny to the 50s and 60s, where the main, registered causes for the wage gap were:?

• Lower education rates: Caused by the fact that education for women hasn’t always been an option, with varying factors that go from race, to country, to economic status, to culture, etc. For example, it wasn’t until 1972 and the enactment of Title IX that federal law in the U.S.A guaranteed the right to an education free from sex discrimination. Yes, you read that right: 1972.
• Lower Workforce Participation and the so-called “Feminine jobs”: This comes from the belief that men should dedicate themselves to jobs that require intelligence, endurance, physical strength, and specific skills acquired through education.?

Since women were mostly not able to receive higher schooling at that time, most had to stick to “feminine” jobs–those linked to maternity, assistance, beauty, or caregiving–so they would mostly have to work as nurses, beauticians, secretaries, and sometimes teachers.

Their jobs were already seen as being “secondary”, so you could say that it was practically legal to pay women less.

• The belief that women can’t hold power: In a society ruled by men, with men being (mostly) educated by men on institutions owned by men, which were paid for by men…Well, you get the point I’m making here.?Women were mostly seen and recognized as weak and uneducated, if not outright lesser in nature. As a result, this narrowed their only “acceptable” responsibilities, both for society and their partners to little more than housework and childbearing. This smoothly leads us to our next point.
• “Women should raise children”: This statement has its foundations on society’s conviction that women, because of their sex and “capacities” , are meant to be the primary, if not exclusive, caregivers of their families and homes, whereas men are limited to being merely the providers. This drives the dangerous narrative of “each one should “stick to their roles”

Even if women were able to access or even pursue higher education, we would still hear and see things as “The woman who chases a career has chosen to ignore that their right place is in their home.”, among other sexist mumbo-jumbo.

The status quo implied being: they should only limit themselves to being wives and mothers, and not professionals. Never professionals.

This is where it all comes together.?

Women in the late 1960s fought for labor equality along with other human rights that were being taken away from them due to their gender.

Despite the fact that social movements like the Women’s Liberation Movement helped battle many issues during this era, one of the key topics of discussion was and continues to be: maternity and the “women’s role”.

But, how does this keep on affecting us as a society??

The Undeniable Truth

Women are judged by their choices whereas men are judged by their income.?

As today’s working women enter their late 20s-early 30s, huge pressure is set upon them; to choose between steady professional growth versus achieving a traditional “fulfilling” family situation.

But what if we were to choose both??

Maternity Leave

What is maternity leave? In case you don’t know, it’s a period of time granted by the employer to a mother before and after the birth of her child.?

In most cases, it is paid, but this varies between countries and industries.?

This “time off” is given to parents to take care of their children in the early, vital first months of their lives.?

A somewhat lesser-known fact is that there’s also a paternity leave, but in most cases, it’s registered to not be taken by fathers.?

One of the main reasons behind this is the patriarchal belief that men should be providers and women should be caregivers of their households. Exclusively.

But what happens after a mother returns from her maternity leave??

For women, there’s an obvious availability decrease when they get back to the office.

They now face the same amount of tasks and responsibilities at their job as before, plus the plethora of duties that come with being a mom, such as attending to their child's needs, breastfeeding, children’s health issues, going to and from the daycare, etc.

The time women spend as caregivers is significantly different from men's; it takes time off from their work so they can take care of their family. As you probably may realize, this too caused by an unequal share of parenting time and responsibilities in today’s society and work culture.?

While maternity leaves or even the choice of having a family is seen for women as a "voluntary" decision that will, later on, affect their productivity and income, men have a larger chance of escalating the work-ladder. This seems to ring true even if both partners work in the same field, or in some cases, in the same company.

In the professional world, maternity is often implied to be some sort of preference or choice that we, as women, simply pick to do.

But since men are also implied in their family's planning and development, it’s clear that responsibility is not being shared equally.

We could even make the argument that companies (led mostly by men, as we established before) make that decision for them.

Summarizing: Time availability is the main reason behind the gender wage gap.

For BIPOC, immigrants, and mothers, the gap widens even further.

Evidently, there’s a difference in the matter between large enterprises and small businesses.

This comes primarily because of their mere scale difference, but there’s also a very notable distinction between working models.?

One of the most convenient options for today’s mothers or mothers-to-be is remote work.?

Why? It’s simple, really:?

1. Remote jobs usually pay per hour: In whatever field you’re in, remote work offers a large number of possibilities to professionals around the world; getting paid for your work regardless of your gender or even your availability. Basically, as long as you deliver your workload on time, you’re good to go.
2. You can do it anywhere: Whether that is at home, while you wait for a doctor’s appointment, while you’re grabbing a cup of coffee, or going on a family road trip; you choose your own workspace.
3. Time flexibility: Having the capacity of choosing when to do whatever you need to do gives you enough space to plan your activities ahead and establish your own routines. Make it work for you and for your family.?

What Can We Do To Help Close The Gap?

Some countries have taken some steps forward into their nation's social equity matters, by giving them a specific and sometimes mandatory amount of time for paternity and maternity leave laws. This tries to assure that both men and women get enough time to take care of their families and the opportunity of doing it together, giving them a better sense of stability and equal chances of continuing to grow as professionals after they return from leave.?

Long story short: the gap is real, and the clear answer to fight it is seeing everyone as equally capable and responsible for doing so. Pretty cool, huh?

What do you think?

How has the Gender Wage Gap affected your career?