Blog Post 6&7: Arguements- Gender Wage Gap

Blog Post 6: What do claim is the direct cause of your conflict?

Conclusion Claim: Women are underpaid due to discrimination against them.

Premise: Women are passed over for promotions/salary raises due to pregnancy and a mandatory 12 week paid leave. This makes women cautious about applying for higher ranking position to obtain higher pay grades because bosses don’t want to pay someone who won’t be there.(Finn, n.d)

Premise: Women are denied positions for companies because of their appearance, employers fear sexual harassment lawsuits(Finn, n.d). An Iowa women was fired from her job as a dental assistant because her boss found her too attractive and a threat to his marriage.(Strauss, n.d)

Strauss, E. (n.d.). Iowa Woman Fired for Being Attractive Looks Back and Moves On. ABC News. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://abcnews.go.com/Business/iowa-woman-fired-attractive-back-moves/story?id=19851803

Finn, L., & Media, D. (n.d.). Female Discrimination in the Workplace. Everyday Life. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/female-discrimination-workplace-2736.html

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Betty Dukes (10-277). (n.d.). LII. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/10-277

Blog Post 7: What do you claim is the direct cause of your conflict?

Conclusion Claim: The wage gap does not exist when things such as education, family life, personal work choice/job choice, etc are taken in for account.

Premise: Men are more likely to enter into higher paying fields and occupations by choice(Tobak,2011). According to Tobak women are more likely to enter into professions that generally do not have high salaries such as education and healthcare. Tobak provides a statistic that in 2009 only 7% of professional women were employed in the field of engineering compared to the 38% of men employed in the same field.

Premise: The real gap isn’t between men and women doing the same job. It’s between the different jobs that men and women take(Thompson, 2013, p1).

Tobak, S. (2011, March 11). The Gender Pay Gap is a Complete Myth. CBSNews. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-28246928/the-gender-pay-gap-is-a-complete-myth/

Thompson, D. (2013, May 30). The Atlantic. The Atlantic. Retrieved November 6, 2013, from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/the-biggest-myth-about-the-gender-wage-gap/276367/

Annotated Bibliography- Gender Wage Gap

Arulampalam, W., Booth, A. L., & Bryan, M. L. (2007). Is there a glass ceiling over Europe? Exploring the gender pay gap across the wage distribution. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 60(2), 163-186.http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=2&sid=d0492e3d-1202-4422-89c3-7d183d06d245%40sessionmgr12&hid=6

1. The authors of this article are investigating the gender wage gap based on different levels of education in eleven different countries. They tend to find that the wage gap differs greatly at both ends, in certain countries those with higher level educations experience a larger pay gap while those with lesser education tend to experience less of a pay gap. Likewise, it is also found the other way around where there is a very small gap between those with a higher education and a considerable gap between those with a lesser education. The authors conclude that regardless of the differing levels of education women are still found to be underpaid in their work fields compared to men
2. I picked this article because it addressed an issue/theme related to my topic; women are under paid due to differing levels of education. This article takes a more specific approach to my topic, in that it focuses primarily on the educational levels of men and women in many different countries to find a cause for the gap. This article directly relates to my conflict because it mentions that women are considerably under paid by their employers and takes a look a common belief that it is due to an educational gap. I would have liked it if the author also talked about the home life of women, to get a perspective and see if it maybe a cause it the pay gap.

Asplund, R., & Napari, S. (2011). Intangibles and the Gender Wage Gap: An analysis of Gender Wage Gaps across occupations in the Finnish private sector. Journal of Labor Research, 32(4), 305-325. doi:10.1007/s12122-011-9114-9 http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=4af8edbb-a2e7-44cf-a739-824cdb076163%40sessionmgr113&vid=3&hid=116

1. This article takes a look at the gender wage gap between workers who change and become better to help the company thrive (innovation workers) and those who do not take as much initiative evolve with their company (non- innovation workers).The article looks at different factors that contribute to the gap as well as possible misleading sources in the role of intangible capital. The article in the end blames sector specific factors as playing a large role in the wage gap, and confirms that there are misleading conclusions about so called “intangible capital”
2. I picked this article because of its relation to my topic. The article presents are very specific viewpoint of the issue regarding misleading data about money that’s not there and the role of the worker. The article directly relates to my conflict because it discusses the gender wage gap, but in Finland. This article confused me a bit but it explains that there are incorrect findings about the wage gap which led to false conclusions and that is something I may want to look more into. I wish the author could have taken a more global stand point and look at the gender wage gap across the entire world.

Nyhus, E. K., & Pons, E. (2012). Personality and the gender wage gap. Applied Economics, 44(1), 105-118. doi:10.1080/00036846.2010.500272 http://ehis.ebscohost.com.proxy-ub.researchport.umd.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6bf1940b-6437-40f0-8178-f7d8933af473%40sessionmgr4&vid=3&hid=110

1. The article looks at the personality of women compared to men and uses that as a possible explanation for why women may experience a pay gap. The article concludes that part of the “unexplained part” of the gender wage gap is believed to be due to discrimination. The authors give a multitude of reasons however they conclude that the differences in pay is due to the personality of the person from their own personal lifestyles and how they pick and choose in the labor market.
2. I picked this article because of its relation to my topic. This article gets very specific in blaming the gap for the different personalities of people. The article relates to my topic because a common belief for the gap is that women differ greatly in their life choices and personalities from men and women tend to take more personal days. The article confirmed a theme that I was curious about. I wish the author described a little bit more about the home life factor of women on wor.

UPenn, W. S. (2012, June 8). “The vicious cycle of the gender pay gap” Business & Money. Business money comments. Retrieved October 28, 2013, from http://business.time.com/2012/06/08/the-vicious-cycle-of-the-gender-pay-gap-2/

1. This article openly blames discrimination as a cause of the pay gap. The author says that lawsuits were filed against a stockbroking company that supposedly benefitted the male workers even though brokers were paid in commission. The company says that the reason women did not earn as much as men is because they are not good sales people. It was found that at the firms women were less likely to receive accounts that had higher commission earnings and that is what put a dent in their salaries.
2. I picked this article because of its relation to my topic. This article does provide a broad overview of the topic by giving a specific example, it is widely believed that the gap in wages in due discrimination. It’s relation to my topic is that it discusses discrimination of women in the workplace and how that leads to women being unfairly treated as well as underpaid. This article was very helpful with background information and giving a sense of this conflict. I wish Madden would have gave her own opinion on whether she believed discrimination was at fault or how she feels about the conflict.

Fitzpatrick, Laura. “Why do women still earn less than men.” TIME.com. TIME Magazine, 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2013. < http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1983185,00.html

1. The article talks about the gender wage gap between men and women. The article mentions specific values that indicate the percentage of what women earn compared to men. The article concludes that ending the discrimination would be beneficial to everyone who supports equal rights.
2. I picked this article because it provides great background information on the causes of the gender wage gap. The article provides a very broad perspective on the gender wage gap including some possible causes. This article has a direct relation to my topic because it provides background information as well as a few statistics. This article provided excellent background information to help me understand my topic. I would have liked more in depth explanation of the causes of the gender wage gap.

Exlporing Themes: Human Rights- Gender Wage Gap

UNDERSTANDING THE GENDER PAY GAP: WHAT’S COMPETITION GOT TO DO WITH IT?. (2010). Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 63(4), 681-698.

The article describes possible reasons for the gender wage gap and the factors that contribute to the problem. The article hypothesizes that a major contribution to the gap is that women are a lot less competitive compared to men and only compete when the rewards/incentives are higher, and due to the lack of competition their performance falls below that of their male counterparts explaining why men earn more than women. The article concludes that while these reasons are a contributing factor it only makes up a very small percentage of the gap in wages and that misleading data as well as other published article take things for facts instead of putting more research into it, leading people in the wrong direction.

This article connects with my theme of human rights because its explanation of the factors contributing to the major topic of the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap is the difference of wages earned between men and women, and women believe they are being discriminated against as well as some violation to their rights as workers. The author of the article researches possible triggers for what may be the cause of the gap in salaries, the author talks about how data has been used to make the wage gap appear larger than it really maybe and that contributing factors do not have such a large impact as other make it to believe.