Social inequality can be seen in various aspects of our society through economic inequality, social inequalities and political inequalities. This paper will specifically look at the inequalities found in the workforce by examining the gender wage gap. This paper will also look at gender inequality in the wage gap through the functionalist perspective. Gender stratification is the unequal distribution of wealth, power and privilege across genders. We live in a society where patriarchy is at work, meaning within our social organizations men have more power and dominate over other genders. Patriarchal societies are maintained through a careful cultivation of attitudes, behaviors and systems that favor men and encourage society to believe that one gender is innately better than the other. We see sexism directly at play when we look at how our workforce is constructed. Sexist stereotypes continue to serve as justifications for gender inequality within various spheres of social life.
Gender roles are socially determined, we learn how to play our roles through the process of socialization and in turn we also learn discrimination through the same process. Gender differences are primarily a product of socialization, discrimination and other forms of social control (Marger 2014:332). We can see the effects of gender stratification when we look at the types of occupations men and women are concentrated in. Certain roles in modern society remain gender specific. Women often take roles that require expressive qualities whereas men often fulfill instrumental roles (Marger 2014:334). These role differences can be seen as early as the agrarian hunter-gatherer society’s where the women foraged and the men hunted. What is seen here is gender essentialism which is the idea that there are unique male and female traits that make each gender better suited for different roles. This is a large driving force behind why we find women in a non-manual occupations and men in a manual occupations. While many gender stereotypes negatively affect women they have similar effects on men. When we look at certain job fields we see higher proportions of one gender over the other. Occupations where a higher proportion of women are found are what are known as “pink collar jobs” which are jobs within the highest concentrations of women that tend to come with both lower prestige and pay. Pink collar jobs include occupations such as teachers, nurses and clerical workers.
According the a survey in 2016 by the Pew Research Center, white women earn about 0.80 cents for every dollar that white men make. This gap is wider for non-white women, with black women earning 0.65 cents and Hispanic women earning 0.58 cents for ever dollar that men make (Graf and Brown 2018). Much of this gap is said to be explained by differences in education, choices of career, differences in hours worked, and differences in experience. “Today despite comprising nearly half the workforce the median woman working full time earns roughly 21% less than her male counterpart” ( Canales 2018:996). In my opinion the statistics of women making less money than men simply compares the median wages of men and the median wages of women who work full time. It doesn’t break down women with different educations, occupations, experience and I feel that this is the information necessary to close the wage gap. Statistics like the ones described are detrimental to women. They limit the ability of a woman being able to not only care for her family, but her self and her future retirement. I feel that much of the wage gap can be explained by differences in education, choices of career, differences in the hours worked, and differences in experience.
Functionalist view of inequality says that systems of stratification exist because they must serve some function. Functional theorists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore proposed that social inequality exists because some positions are more important than others, positions of greatest complexity and importance are the best rewarded, unequal rewards ensure that the most important positions are filled by the most qualified persons and unequal rewards encourage talented people to go through long periods of training to fill these positions. Analyzing the wage gap from this perspective would mean that the wage gap exists for four reasons. 1) Some positions are more important than others, 2.) The wage gap exists because positions of greatest complexity and importance are best rewarded, 3) unequal rewards found in the pay gap ensure that the most important positions are filled by the most qualified persons, and 4.) The wage gap encourages talented people to go through long periods of training to fill important positions. When we look at current trends in the wage gap I feel that sexist stereotypes serve as justifications for this gender inequality. Perhaps some jobs play more of an important role over others but this isn’t to say that one gender is more capable than the other to fulfill the role or that not every job within our society serves an important purpose. . “The biggest known contributing factor to the gender wage gap is occupational segregation” (Hegewisch and Williams-Baron 2017:5), meaning that men and women work in different occupations. We’re taught from an early age which career choices are appropriate to pursue. Young girls are given dolls to care for, where as young boys may be given building blocks. These things serve as foundations for the things we seek later in life. The second principle says that gendered wage inequality occurs because women either do not seek or hold occupations that are of great complexity and importance. I feel that this may be correlated to how our gendered roles are taught through socialization at an early age . Education in fields of science and math are primarily sought after by males where as occupations where empathy may be required are sought by females. I do not feel that women make less money because they do not seek occupations that are complex, I believe that from a young age girls are encouraged to seek stereotypical careers for women. The third principle says that most important positions are filled by the most qualified individuals. This implies that women are simply not qualified and that’s why we don’t find them in positions of power. This fails to recognize the structural features of society constraining women’s options. Occupational and sector segregation ,discrimination and the unequal division of care work are the driving forces of the gender wage gap. Women are often are found to leave the workforce to enter care for children which is more normative for women than it is for men. The age when women decide to leave the workforce coincides with the age when most women bear children. The discrepancy of men and women in high powered positions isn’t due to women not being qualified. It simply has to do with women are normally the ones that must sacrifice their careers in one way or another to care for their families. The final principle says that the discrepancy of pay encourages people to seek longer training to be able to fulfill these positions of higher pay. However, when we look at patterns of the gender wage gap since the passing of the Equal Pay Act 1963, education doesn’t solve the wage gap, and instead the wage gap is largest between men and women with the highest levels of education.
The gender wage gap is something that our society is working to equalize but in my opinion there is still a long road ahead in order to resolve the issue. Sexism and the patriarchy have real impact that make it harder for all genders to be on even footing in our society. Until we make strides against patriarchy, societal progression will forever be limited.