Economics of Race and Gender Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Economics of Race and Gender - Term Paper Example I intend to show that evidence exists that the imbalance in economic pay for women can be corrected with continued positive efforts by society. Much progress has been made in regards equal pay for equal job performance in recent decades, yet a significant gap still exists even among managerial professionals in the workforce. A study outlined in The Herald (Glasgow) mentions that women receive 17.1 percent less pay than their male colleagues (Morgan, News, p 10). One of the first significant legal moves toward equality was with the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (U.S. Dept. of Labor, 2). The Act states that it is illegal for employers to discriminate on basis of sex (p 2). Despite the Equal Pay Act, a 2005 article in The Herald reports that both females and pregnant women in particular face discrimination at work. The author found that 54 percent of Scottish women faced discrimination during pregnancy, while 50 percent of women in the UK reported similar issues. Only 20 percent of the women surveyed however decided to report occurrence of the issue (Morgan, News 10). Businesses also contribute to the problem since only 10 percent of companies surveyed in Scotland perform equal pay reviews, while only 22 percent perform such reviews in England (Morgan, News 10). Another recent article in Scotland on Sunday reported that surveys of workers in Scotland found that female mangers encountered greater pay discrimination the higher in the organization they went (Barnes, 9). The reporter mentioned that the pay gap is the greatest for top level jobs. The top 10 percent of males in Scotland were making more than 40,500 GBP, while the top 10 percent of females were making more than 34,000 GBP (Barnes, 9). Currently, women are largely left out of executive roles, and this is occurring in most developed countries. A recent article in The Independent newspaper from London