Page 205 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes secretaries, and librarians have become female-dominated while occupations including architects,
electrical engineers, and airplane pilots remain predominately male in composition. Based on the
census data, women occupy the service sector jobs at higher rates than men. Women’s
overrepresentation in service sector jobs as opposed to jobs that require managerial work acts as a
reinforcement of women and men into traditional gender roles that causes gender inequality.
Once factors such as experience, education, occupation, and other job-relevant characteristics have
been taken into account, 41% of the male-female wage gap remains unexplained. As such,
considerations of occupational segregation and human capital theories are together not enough to
understand the continued existence of a gendered income disparity.
The glass ceiling effect is also considered a possible contributor to the gender wage gap or income
disparity. This effect suggests that gender provides significant disadvantages towards the top of job
hierarchies which become worse as a person’s career goes on. The term glass ceiling implies that
invisible or artificial barriers exist which prevent women from advancing within their jobs or receiving
promotions. These barriers exist in spite of the achievements or qualifications of the women and still
exist when other characteristics that are job-relevant such as experience, education, and abilities are
controlled for. The inequality effects of the glass ceiling are more prevalent within higher-powered
or higher income occupations, with fewer women holding these types of occupations. The glass
ceiling effect also indicates the limited chances of women for income raises and promotion or
advancement to more prestigious positions or jobs. As women are prevented by these artificial barriers
from receiving job promotions or income raises, the effects of the inequality of the glass ceiling increase
over the course of a woman’s “career?
Statistical discrimination is also cited as a cause for income disparities and gendered inequality in the
workplace. Statistical discrimination indicates the likelihood of employers to deny women access to
certain occupational tracks because women are more likely than men to leave their job or the labor
force when they become married or pregnant. Women are instead given positions that dead-end or
jobs that have very little mobility.
In Third World countries such as the Dominican Republic, female entrepreneurs are statistically
more prone to failure in business. In the event of a business failure women often return to their
domestic lifestyle despite the absence of income. On the other hand, men tend to search for other
employment as the household is not a priority.
The gender earnings ratio suggests that there has been an increase in women’s earnings comparative
to men. Men’s plateau in earnings began after the 1970s, allowing for the increase in women’s wages
to close the ratio between incomes. Despite’ the smaller ratio between men and women’s wages,
disparity still exists. Census data suggests that women’s earnings are 71 percent of men’s earnings in
1999.
The gendered wage gap varies in its width among different races. Whites comparatively have the
greatest wage gap between the genders. With whites, women earn 78% of the wages that white men
do. With African Americans, women earn 90% of the wages that African American men do. With
people of Hispanic origin, women earn 88% of the wages that men of Hispanic origin do.
There are some exceptions where women earn more than men: According to a survey on gender pay
inequality by the International Trade Union Confederation, female workers in the Gulf state of Bahrain
earn 40 per cent more than male workers.
Professional education and careers
The gender gap also appeared to narrow considerably beginning in the mid-1960s. Where some 5%
of first-year students in professional programs were female in 1965, by 1985 this number had jumped
to 40% in law and medicine, and over 30% in dentistry and business school. Before the highly effective
birth control pill was available, women planning professional careers, which required a long-term,
expensive commitment, had to “pay the penalty of abstinence or cope with considerable uncertainty
regarding pregnancy.” This control over their reproductive decisions allowed women to more easily
make long-term decisions about their education and professional opportunities. Women are highly
underrepresented on boards of directors and in senior positions in the private sector.

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