Gender Pay Gap: An Ethical Issue and Its Potential Legal Solution
Recently, a series of corporate scandals related to the problem of unequal pay enabled more companies to begin acknowledging such an issue in their organizations. Every year, thousands of women report gender-based discrimination in the workplace, and the majority of these complaints concern a considerable difference in the level of salaries of male and female employees. The problem of unequal pay is inherently ethical since the decision to pay women less than men is made by leaders stems from particular views held by corporate managers. Moreover, some companies tend to introduce policies which promote discriminatory practices and prevent women from advancing in their careers. In the United States, laws exist which prohibit discrimination based on gender, and substantial penalties can be imposed on enterprises if they are found to be violating the law. Nevertheless, the problem of the gender pay gap remains to be topical, and further legal measures are necessary to reduce its impact and eventually eradicate it completely. Thus, the gender pay gap is a moral issue which persists in the business sphere and which can be resolved by introducing better laws such as the Paycheck Fairness Act.
First of all, it is necessary to provide evidence in support of the notion that the gender pay gap is an ethical issue. Ethical problems arise when certain actions conflict with the established norms and moral principles in society (Kolb, 2018). It is clear that the decision by certain corporate leaders to provide unequal remuneration for the same work to men and women can be considered immoral. Moreover, society in any developed country strives to uphold the principles of equality and justice for all people, and the practice of paying different sums to individuals based on their gender is discriminatory. Additionally, the gender pay gap is an issue which in the majority of cases, concerns women since they constitute the main group who experiences this problem. Nevertheless, it is incorrect to consider the gender pay gap as only a woman issue since it ultimately has a negative impact on every stakeholder in society, including women’s families. Thus, the current gender pay gap must be viewed as an ethical issue which affects the whole of society and which has to be resolved with the help of existing mechanisms.
There are large arrays of data available and produced every year, which show that the trend towards workplace equality in terms of pay is extremely slow. As of 2020, women earned only 84% of what men earned, which is slightly more compared to 82% registered in 2019 (Barroso & Brown, 2021). It is clear that such progress is moving at an extremely slow rate, and taking into consideration the current policies; it will take countries several decades to solve the problem. Moreover, the aforementioned data also demonstrates that the problem of the gender pay gap is still relevant in the United States and that despite being a leading economy, the country fails to ensure equality for its citizens. It is possible to assume that there are people who consider the evidence on the existing gender pay gap irrelevant because there is an appropriate methodology to count all salaries in the country. Yet, the numbers which researchers offer to the public are already sufficient to claim that there is no equality between genders in terms of their pay.
The gender pay gap is an issue which is widely discussed in society, and there are attempts to justify it by reasons which are not related to discrimination. Some people claim that the difference in the level of salaries between men and women exists due to the latter’s choice to have jobs which are low-paid (Gould et al., 2016). In other words, certain individuals believe that there is no discrimination in the workplace because women, on average, tend to make a decision to pursue a career which implies small financial remuneration. While it is true that the STEM sphere is often chosen by men and therefore has a large number of them working in it. Yet, as the recent study conducted by the New Scientist demonstrates, women working in the STEM sphere receive less than an average salary in the industry (Fleming, 2018). Thus, there is evidence in support of the argument that women are paid less, especially in male-dominated spheres such as STEM.
Moreover, there are plenty of examples which demonstrate that even when men and women occupy the same positions in companies, they may receive different sums. For instance, currently, there are 10,000 women suing Google for being underpaid compared to their male colleagues despite holding the same positions (Shah, 2021). Such cases indicate that even major enterprises continue to discriminate against their female workers and offer them lower salaries. Considering the fact that even international businesses are ready to face legal consequences and potentially suffer large losses for pursuing discriminatory policies, there are two potential assumptions which can be made. First of all, small-scale companies which do not attract as much attention as Google also engage in similar illegal activities and continue to avoid punishment. Secondly, the existing legal framework for penalizing practices such as paying different salaries to men and women is ineffective because it does not imply any considerable punitive measures. As a result, companies continue to discriminate against women who struggle to advance in the spheres dominated by men.
It is obvious that the gender pay gap is only one form of discrimination to which women are subject in the workplace. For example, there are many cases which involve women being dismissed from their jobs because of their pregnancy or health-related factors (Price, 2018). It is a widespread practice to lay off women who soon have to deliver a newborn because companies view them as unable to work due to their pregnancy. Moreover, even if a woman stays employed by the company and is given maternity leave, she still will not receive any salary during her absence or any kind of compensation. As a result, women become particularly vulnerable, and coupled with instances when women are underpaid on their job, pregnancy for them can be a predicament. Thus, companies systemically discriminate against their female employees and put them in positions where they are at a disadvantage in comparison to male colleagues.
Moreover, the problem of the gender pay gap in the United States has different effects on women of various races and ethnicities. Official statistics show that black and Hispanic women are affected by the issue the most since their median hourly wages are much lower than those of white men (Gould et al., 2016). In other words, the difference in salaries between genders is also related to race issues which makes it even more serious. Essentially, women of color are more affected by the problem than white females, which exposes another facet of the issue in question, namely, systemic racism. Companies view minority women as people who can be provided with a much smaller salary compared to their white colleagues of both genders. It is clear that partially, the problem can be explained by a substantial number of immigrants who have low-paying jobs due to their poor command of English. Yet, there is still a large population of American citizens of color who continue to face pay discrimination due to their skin color.
Legal measures are the most effective means which can help tackle the problem of the gender pay gap, and there are already laws which work. For instance, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 is one of the oldest pieces of legislation related to the problem, which significantly improved the situation with the equality of salaries (Miller et al., 2018). The law prohibited using separate pay scales for men and women performing the same kind of work. On the one hand, the act was successful because it was not illegal for employers to determine women’s salaries based on their gender. On the other hand, the act did not guarantee equal opportunities for women in hiring, and this was later corrected by the passing of the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Ehrenberg & Smith, 2017). Yet, as the data provided above indicates, the passing of laws did not solve the issue of the gender pay gap. Nevertheless, the act became a significant precedent of an effective law which can positively impact the existing problem.
When creating new legislation, the United States to rely on the experience of other countries, which were successful in countering the problem of the gender pay gap. Belgium, a nation with one of the lowest gender pay gaps, in 2011, adopted the Gender Pay Gap Reduction Act, which made every company present their labor cost difference between the two sexes (Nagendra, n.d.). Essentially, companies must report their remuneration practices to the government agencies and prove that they do not commit any illegal actions. The law introduces additional accountability for companies and thus encourages them to observe the legal requirements and discourages them from paying women less than men. Such initiatives allowed Belgium to become a nation with a minimum gender pay gap which is continuing to narrow. The country demonstrated that modern legal measures have the potential to decrease the difference in salaries among men and women. Belgium’s laws can serve as an example for the United States, which can not only pass similar laws but also improve them.
Thus, the United States government has the capacity to solve the issue by implementing new legislation which can improve the equality of the two sexes in the workplace. For instance, the Paycheck Fairness Act proposed by AAUW would introduce stricter penalties for employers, ban the use of salary history for decisions concerning employment, and close the current loopholes (Miller et al., 2018). As a result, employers will be more incentivized to provide equal opportunities for both sexes, and the problem of the gender pay gap will become less pronounced. One of the previously mentioned causes of the gender pay gap is the lack of a paid maternal leave in the United States, a situation which harms women who had a child and their families. Experts propose to adopt the Family and Medical Insurance Leave (FAMILY) Act, which will establish a national program for the provision of paid family leave for all working people (Miller et al., 2018). Following the example of Belgium, the government should introduce administrative mechanisms which would gather and track data on the remuneration practices of companies to ensure that they comply with the laws.
The United States can reduce the gender pay gap by relying on the examples of other countries and introducing new legislation promoting workplace equality. Currently, numerous studies and data gathered over decades of research indicate that the problem of the gender pay gap remains a persistent issue in the United States. The problem has not been resolved even despite the adoption by the government of laws prohibiting discriminatory practices in the workplace. Women of color are particularly affected by the gender pay gap because they also encounter systemic racism. Additionally, the efforts to resolve the problem are complicated by numerous attempts by different individuals and organizations to dismiss the gender pay gap as non-existent. Yet evidence clearly shows that women having the same jobs as men continue to receive smaller salaries for their work compared to their male colleagues. The U.S. government has to implement new laws protecting women and their workplace rights and consider using the legal initiatives used by foreign countries. New laws such as the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Family and Medical Insurance Leave will help ensure that women and men receive equal treatment.
References
Barroso, A., & Brown, A. (2021). Gender pay gap in U.S. held steady in 2020.
Ehrenberg, R. G., & Smith, R. (2017). Modern labor economics: Theory and public policy. Routledge.
Fleming, N. (2018). How the gender pay gap permeates science and engineering. The New Scientist.
Gould, E., Schieder, J., & Geier, K. (2016). What is the gender pay gap and is it real? Economic Policy Institute.
Kolb, R. (2018). The SAGE encyclopedia of business ethics and society. Sage.
Miller, K., Vagins, D. Hedgepeth, A., Nielson, K., & Nelson, R. (2018). The simple truth about the gender pay gap. AAUW.
Nagendra, M. (n.d.). Addressing the gender wage gap in Belgium. The Borgen Project.
Price, E. (2018). Woman fired for needing maternity leave at an inconvenient time. Fortune.
Shah, S. (2021). Over 10,000 women are suing Google over gender pay disparity. Engadget.