Analysis of the Gender Inequality in the American Workforce

Brief Analysis of the Gender Inequality in the American Workforce

      Nowadays, with the social development and feminist movements, women’s social position has improved and more and more women step into the working office. However, in 2010, the earnings ratio between men and women was 77%, which meant that women only earned 77% the salary of men. Even though women currently constitute 45 percent of the paid labor force, they continue to lag behind men in earnings and organizational power (U.S. Department of Labor, 195). There are several prevalent explanations of this gender inequality, including the personal choice, the structure of the labor market, the social concept, etc. Among these explanations, in my perspective, the social concept plays the most compelling role because the social concept consolidates the patriarchy values in the workforce and defines the structure of the labor market. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of the social concept leading to the gender inequality in three aspects: the ideology of patriarchy, the ideology of womanhood, and the racial concept in the workforce.

To begin with, the ideology of patriarchy determines the men’s dominant role in the labor market and defines the structure of the labor market with the male privilege. Compared with women, men have been dominating in the labor market for a long period of time. Even though women start to participate in almost every aspect in the labor market, their influence is quite small and limited. The capital market was established by males, so the capitalism was meant to serve mainly men, not women. The capital market is based on the patriarchy concept, so the development of the labor market will only consolidate men’s dominant position. The labor market is organized to uphold white privilege in general and white male privilege in particular, which contributes to the gender inequality in the workforce. Within each job, there tends to be hierarchies so that within jobs, women will be in lower status jobs that pay less than men. Thus, it is not difficult for us to find that most high-profit industries are male-dominant. Women-dominant jobs are limited to the service-based jobs, like teachers, assistants, secretaries, etc. Nevertheless, even in the female-dominated jobs, there were only a few examples of women earning more than men, like personal appearance workers, teacher assistant, etc. Still the salary difference was very small. Generally speaking, men earned more than women in the female-dominated jobs, like registered nurses (90% female) and secretaries & administrative assistants (94% female). This phenomenon shows the severe inequality in the structure of the labor market. Even if in the same position, men tend to earn more than women because the social patriarchy concept is solid in people’s minds, especially those employers. In this sense, women’s employment is increasing but social support structures are not. Due to the structure of the workforce, it is very difficult for women to take the male-dominant jobs, let alone to play the dominant role. In nearly every occupation, women encounter barriers when they try to enter the most lucrative and prestigious specialties. A “glass ceiling” prevents them from reaching the top positions (Reskin and Phipps, 190). The capital market is, in some degree, interwoven with the popularity of patriarchal values. So if the patriarchal concept is not changed, this inequality in the labor market is almost impossible to change.

In addition, the ideology of womanhood keeps women from the high-profit industry and influences women’s opinions when they are faced with job choices. The privileged social concept believes that women’s “true” nature is to mother and to not engage in manual labor. Even though more and more women start to work, there are still nearly half women choose to be housewives. Statistics showed that in 2013, there were only 50%-60% of women choose to work and only 74% of them were full-time workers. The most common reason for women participating in the workforce is the difficult financial condition of the family. Due to the patriarchy influence in the labor market, the gendered division of labor is clear. There are not many job alternatives for women to choose, and women are generally regarded as a reserve army of labor. This social phenomenon may influence women’s decision to participate in the workforce. Moreover, women in the workforce have to face the problem of pregnancy and work/family intersections. On the most basic level, work organizations are gendered in that employers prefer to hire workers with few if any nonwork distractions. This is not a gender-neutral preference: Men fit this description far more easily than women, because of the unequal division of household labor in most families. (Acker, 149) Also, after the birth of the baby, the new mother will find it very difficult to balance the work with the child caring and family odds. So many young mothers choose to stay at home as housewives if they can’t afford a babysitter. This is what the social concept of womanhood supposes a woman to be. Meanwhile, since the ideology of womanhood doesn’t take women as the main source of family income source, even though women participate in the workplace, they don’t have the burden to challenge themselves to support their families, so women tend to choose easy jobs with low earning and aspiration. This low self-efficacy partly explains the wage difference between men and women. So with this social concept of womanhood, women are supposed to deal with the family affairs and put less pressure on their financial ability. This concept, to some extent, influences women’s choices in the labor market.  

Last but not least, the racial concept sets hierarchies between white women and women of color, which further contributes to the inequality in the labor market. Women, in whatever race, are faced with the same gender inequality in the workforce, such as limited job alternatives, lower wage, the struggle between work and family, and the social ideology of women. Statistics of labor force participation, median weekly earnings, and weekly earnings ratio all prove this inequality. However, despite the gender inequality, racial inequality is also a common phenomenon in the American labor market. As of 2009, the median weekly wage for African American and Hispanic workers was about 65 percent that of White workers, respectively. Asian workers’ median wage was about 101 percent that of White workers (Massey, 173). Clearly, the racial concept also contributes to the inequality in the workforce. The reasons for the racial inequality may lie in the education background, occupational distribution, and the racial discrimination. White and Asian women are more likely to have a higher education level than Black women, Hispanics, or American Indians.  And White and Asian women are more likely to work in managerial and professional occupations, while Black, Hispanic, and American Indian women are more likely to work in service occupations. Thus, Asian and White American women tend to earn more than other races. This race concept is also important to contribute to the inequality in the American workforce.

To sum up, though there are many factors that may contribute to the gender and racial inequality in the labor market, the social concept is definitely the most compelling one. As long as the ideologies of patriarchy, womanhood, and race remain in the workforce, it is hard to change the inequality because it is the social concept that contributes to other factors. The concept decides people’s decisions and people’s decisions decide the social phenomenon. So in order to achieve the equality in the workforce, the concept of gender and racial equality is crucial.