Equal Pay for Equal Work

The long-term earnings gap between women and man has not been standard, as the women have been underpaid in the past to a large extent. Due to the inequality in the society, the payment women received was less than the one for men, even though both sexes would work for the same amount of working hours. This gap, in terms of earnings, created a lot of outcry from the women activists who rose up to demand equality between men and women, based on the work done. With the Women’s Bureau, splitting in 1920, the National Manpower Council joined other organizations to explore ways of developing womanpower. This was mainly because of the gaps that were being witnessed in the earnings gap, whereby women were receiving less as compared to men for the same work and hours worked.

This resulted into the introduction of the Equal Pay for Equal Work policy, which led to Equal Pay Act of 1963. At this point, it is worth noting that the first equal Pay policy took affect after WWI, after the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 established the concept of fair treatment (McBride and Janine, 210-215). This shows that there was inequality and discrimination in the society before in terms of the pay for the women. It is worth noting that the sources for the long-terms earnings gap between the men and the women in the society was mainly due to the consistent instability in the global political systems in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which were marked with wars. 

Introduction

This research proposal will attempt to highlight some of the issues, regarding the existence of the gender gap payments in the current society. It is important to note that the society has been facing this problem for a very long time and this has resulted into various problems, especially for women in the world. Differences that exist, in terms of payment, have been found to exist in most organizations in the current society, whereby most organizations discriminate against women in various ways, leading to a reduction in their payment. Most women workers have, therefore, suffered greatly since they work at the same rate with their male counterparts but end up receiving little payment for their work as compared to the men. As a result, this has brought forth a society, whereby women are considered subordinate and incapable of leadership due to the variation, in terms of their payments, when compared to the men. In addition, this has resulted into a society, in which women are regarded inferior since they do not have the power, in terms of resources, to argue out their potentials.

This is the reason why most women have not been able to feature greatly in the leadership positions in the world (McBride and Janine, 2010). As a matter of fact, there are very few leaders both politically and socially in the current society. This means that this is a problem that the general society needs to address accordingly since the huge gaps, in terms of payment at the work places, reveal a lot of discrimination that is on going in the current society. This is a problem that needs immediate attention since the majority of families in the world, especially in the third world countries, are mainly sustained by women. This shows that as the payment of women in the current society remains a problem, there is a high chance that the socio-economic problems, facing the current society, may not end soon. This makes this problem urgent and deserving of all the necessary attention.

Research Questions/ Hypothesis

• The earnings gap between men and women was more than 20% by early 1900s.

It is worth noting that the basic earnings gap between men and women has been over 20% since the early 1900s. According to research work there, the problem of variation, in terms of earnings, has been a reality in the society for a long time due to the socio-economic as well as political issues that have continued to affect the society. As a matter of fact, it is worth noting that the socio-economic issues in the society contributed to the enlargement of this gap for a very long time. Socially, the older generations of the society categorized women as weaker vessels who were only supposed to take care of their families at home (Woolcock, 2006).

This was basically due to the category that the women had been placed in the society at that time. With this notion having been established in the society, it has been difficult for most of the societal policies to be reviewed in a bid to create equality, in terms of payments, in the society. Politically, the World War I and II led to a lot of imbalance of labor force in the world that resulted into the extension of the earnings gap between men and women in the society. It is worth noting that as the wars took place, most women, due to their physical incapability, did not take part in the battles. As a matter of fact, they remained in the houses as men went out to fight in battlefield. Consequently, this led to a notion in the society, whereby women were seen as a weak gender and so could not be paid equally with the men on the same job, done by both sexes. There was an assumption that the input that women would put into the work could not compare to the input men could put, resulting to the differences in payments (Manning, 2006).

• Women are seen as a reserve labor force, called upon in times of national emergency, leading to low payments.

Due to the socio-economic and political issues, mentioned above, it is necessary to note that the place of women in the society has been low as a result of some of the weaknesses that they may exhibit in certain areas of life. This means that they have not been considered as crucial human resource for the development of the society. As a result, the place of women in the society has been mainly linked to reserve labor force, whereby their services only seem important during the times of national disasters or emergencies. These are times, when the contribution of the women in the society can actually be seen.

This shows that women have only been seen as subjects that can be used only in times of crisis in the society. Consequently, this has led to the assumption that the women are not capable, in terms of the required labor force, in the society, leading to low payments. These differences, in terms of the physiological and socio-economic composition of women and men, have resulted into the current pay gap in gender in the society (Weichselbaumer and Winter-Ebmer, 2005).

• The implantation of the Equal Pay Act has been more flexible than the narrow concept of “equal pay for equal work.’’

There has been a lot of debate, concerning the issue of the payment gap between the women and men in the society. Various female activist groups have come up in a bid to address the imbalance issue that currently exists in the payments of women. In the 1920’s, the feminist movement spilt over the Women’s Bureau’s view of women, producing an irreconcilable decision that stalled progress towards women’s rights. Statistics at that time showed that working for wages had become the norm, not the exception. The Department of labor took the lead of developing the needed resources to fuel the economic growth for women in the society to enhance their participation in the productivity in the society.

In 1945 social feminists introduced a bill to protect women’s pay, which was aimed at ensuring that both men and women in the society actually received the same fair treatment as regards payment. The demand for equal pay remained and gathered support during the 1950’s. Equal Pay Act became an amendment to the FLSA and, thus, covered only wage and hourly workers. It is worth noting that despite the above efforts to bring these changes, the implantation of the Equal Pay Act has been more flexible than the narrow concept of “equal pay for equal work,’’ (Francine & Lawrence, 2007).

• Women’s advocacy groups continued to disagree about basic issues of isolation and equality.

This has been a major problem in the society since the efforts to bring a change, concerning the earnings gap between men and women, was raised in the society. As a matter of fact, it is worth noting that many women activist groups have been able to be formed within different parts of the world to handle payment and equality issues, affecting women in the world. These mixed voices and reactions have acted as a major impediment towards the introduction of policies, which can help the women to easily present their issues to the relevant authorities in the society, which can handle their issues meaningfully to bridge the gap between their payments in relation to the men’s payments (Sowell, 1984).

Methodology

Gender pay gap is one of the most critical issues in the society today. As a result, it is important to carefully consider the kind of approach that is suitable for developing or achieving the set data and project goals. The methodology of research to be carried is instrumental, in terms of developing a systematic approach that will help in the organization of the data, collected in a manner that will depict all the concerns about the research, regarding gender gap pay. In this case, the best research method will ensure that all the information is gathered in the right manner and technique will be the Quantitative Research method. Due to the dynamicity of the field of research, it will be appropriate to adopt a methodology that has a wide scope and is highly flexible, in terms of the data, to be collected over a period of time.

Quantitative Data analysis is important and relevant in this case since it provides a platform for generation of data that can have numerical expressions as well as statistical analysis. It is worth noting that “Quantitative Research can be constructed as a research Strategy that emphasizes quantification in the collection and analysis of data and that entails a deductive approach to the relationship between theory and research, in which the accent is placed on the testing of theories; has incorporated the practices and norms in natural scientific model and of positivism in particular; and embodies a view of social reality as an external objective reality,” (Bryman and Bell, 2007, p. 9). 

Data Collection

This research will adopt the use of survey questions that will be presented to different aspects of the population, targeted in the society. This means that the nature of survey questions to be adopted will vary in order to cater for types of respondents. As a matter of fact, the questionnaires will be designed after the population nature and type have been determined. This is because different targeted respondents (men and women) have varied levels of opinions in terms of the possible causes of gender gap pay in the society. The questionnaires will, therefore, be designed to cater for different categories of respondents in the research environment.

The use of closed questions as well as self administered survey questions will be relevant in this case. Some of the advantages of the self administered and closed questions are that: it makes it easy for the respondents to answer the questions. This is, basically, because the questions are simple and do not need any clarification; it enhances answer comparability since it helps in the actual generation of answers, which are detailed and informative, making it easy for the researcher to clearly compare the answers of different respondents in order to come up with the best conclusion about the questions being handled; it will also show the kind of relationship that exists between the variables, used in the research.

It is worth noting that the number of variables to be used in research is many, especially due to the field of research, and this makes it necessary to use closed questions since only such questions will provide a direct link between different categories of the variables to be used in the research. The form of measurement for all the respective questions will be a four level-layered response.

Ethical issues, expected problems and limitation

The ethical issues, expected in this case, would include the distribution of the questionnaires to various women’s houses at odd hours in the various places, where the research will be conducted. It is worth noting getting the women respondents at odd hours may be difficult since during the day it most likely to be difficult to get them in their respective houses. Another expected problem would be the lack of knowledge and experiences that concerns the subject amongst the men and women respondents. This means that the research work is most likely to be limited, in terms of the depth of information, received for analysis purposes.