Context: Once we identify the data and types of information we need to collect to address the politics of invisibility and hyper-visibility, we still have to explain what we see in this information. While all of us agree that we see a gender difference in the labor market in terms of wage gaps between men and women we still have a debate about whether wage gap actually means that there is inequality. Are we seeing a situation where the differences are not “actual” differences but an artifact of how the data gets collected? OR, do we believe the differences reflect underlying differences in male and female skills and capacities (as suggested by Larry Summers or other theorists who examine women's human capital via education and experience )?
OR, do they reflect inequality? If they do, what is the source of this inequality? Is it discrimination against women by employers? Could something else going on in how we have organized our workplaces and labor markets, or in how we attribute value to work, that is generating the problem? Of course, we do not imagine there will be just one cause, and as context changes, we anticipate the causes that generate these differences would also change. So we are now playing a numbers game -- how important is this or that item in generating this gap? What proportion of the gap is due to
A versus B? Our answers to this will determine our responses and be used as the basis for decision making by the government and policymakers.
Prompt: Drawing in the readings, write a 500-750 words essay (the count is for the actual essay text -- not including name. title, etc., and not including any notes or references) discussing the causes for the gender wage gap. Your discussion must include a discussion of the four main reasons given for why we have a gender gap: Differences in male and female skills/capacities; differences in male and female gender role in the home creating the wage gap as a side-effect of that role difference: discrimination in hiring, pay and promotion against women by educators, employers and co-workers: and job gendering and the institutional organization of the labor market in terms of what jobs men and women do and how we assign economic value to them.
Sample Solution