Wage Inequality and Working Women

Running head: WAGE INEQUALITY AND THE WORKING WOMEN

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Wage Inequality and the Working Women XXXXXXXXXX Webster University

WAGE INEQUALITY AND THE WORKING WOMEN

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Abstract The difference of the earning potential for a recent college graduate based on their gender is an astonishing fact to most women college graduates as they begin their new careers. A good example of this would be the gender wage gap and pay inequality with the same qualifications and experience of the workforce. In the following paper there will be a discussion of the overall wage loss due to this phenomenon, the educational choices that have evolved since women went to work for paid labor during World War II, and the effect of the old boys club that perpetuates the discrimination of women in the workplace. This paper will compare and contrast how companies define the job roles and associated compensation based on the practice on wage inequality. A proposed solution will also be provided by in-depth job evaluations and a fair pay structure will be developed. In the book “Men and Women of the Corporation” the chapter on Secretaries is very telling of the thought process in the 1970’s. The book is based on the study of a corporation

called Indsco that had over one thousand secretaries in a pool to handle administrative tasks as they were needed. The secretaries in essence were on loan and could only gain additional status and promotion by being attached to a man who was the manager. A telling statistic was that there were two men at headquarters who fulfilled these tasks as well but they were designated as typists. The secretaries were usually hired directly out of high school and the career ladder was short with the top secretarial rank being an executive secretary. According to the book “The executive secretarial position was the peak for nonexempt women at Indsco…They stood in dramatic contrast to the situation for nonexempt men, who, as accounting clerks, could easily move by a standard...