Outline
Introduction
Definition of women’s rights
Thesis statement
Body
Sources/ history of fair pay rights violation
Ways through which fair pay rights are violated
Effects of violation of fair pay
Various interventions in dealing with violation of equal pay rights for women in the United States
Involvement of the United Nations women in the protection of rights of women to fair pay
What are the international standards for the rights of women to equal pay?
What are the domestic standards for the rights of women to equal pay?
What comparison exists between the domestic and international standards on
women’s rights to equal pay.
What are the international remedies for violation of women’s rights to equal pay?
What are the domestic remedies for violation of women’s rights to equal pay?
Court’s system involvement in cases that touch on women’s equal pay rights violation
Involvement of other organizations such as the NGOs in dealing with the
infringement of women’s rights to equal pay and the remedies they provide.
Conclusion
Summary of critical key points concerning the violation of women’s rights to fair pay.
Recommendation
Alternative/future solutions to be taken to promote women’s rights to fair pay.
Rights to fair pay to women in America
In today’s world, human rights in any given category and that favors any given gender is a very important aspect that promotes peaceful coexistence among people. Without the promotion or the existence of specific human rights, the world would have been a chaotic place to belong to, as no order would have been existing in guiding people on how they should behave and live their lives. But unfortunately, one category of human rights that has been violated for the longest time and has brought some level of conflict among individuals is the violation of women’s rights to fair pay. Ever Since women strived to enter into the financial world, and by the fact that the rights to fair pay exists, this category of rights have not yet been fulfilled fully, in many parts of the world, especially in America. Its important therefore to understand Some of the factors that have contributed to the existences of violation of this right, together with the effects and some remedies to the violation of the rights, because they are very crucial, in creating a satisfied society, filled with fewer conflicts.
The fight for women to fair pay in America, began with women’s involvement in major economic activities outside their homes in America. In the 20th century, women’s involvement in paid work was a great factor that drove America to economic prosperity (Cursick & Montecinos, 2020). Even with these contributions, women have always been placed in a situation they are unable to achieve their goals, which is about being equally paid like men. Women have been misrepresented in major sectors of the economy due to the discrimination and stereotyping that they are incapable of handling some of the jobs in the economy of America (Oelz et al., 2013). Looking back at history, women contributed only to 20% involvement as gainful workers in the American economy. Only 5% of the women were married, while 15% were young women (Cursick & Montecinos, 2020). The low percentage of married women involved in gainful work, which was regarded as paid work, is a good indication that women’s involvement in economic activities was not much welcomed in the society, as they were only subjected to home keeping and child caring activities. Their main economic activities were producing foods that were only beneficial to the family and in running family businesses.
Women of different races in America had a different experience to involvement in economic activities. The whites and the African American women got a chance to be involved in the economic labor force, which had some pay. But various factors contributed to the existence of this opportunity (Patten, 2016). In the African American women, their ability to continue providing labor force was because they could still work even when married. For the white women, education favored them in working in major jobs in the economy, but all this didn’t mean that they were paid equally to men (Patten, 2016). Therefore, these provisions indicate that if factors such as education or marriage were non-existence, women would have suffered a lot in getting involved in paid jobs. With the improvement in technology, and the availability to access high school education to a good number of women in America, women were able to dominate many jobs, especially the clerical, nursing, and teaching jobs, which kept them at an almost equal level as men involvement in major activities within the economy (Patten, 2016). But even, as the gap between women and men involvement in major economic activities is important to the economic prowess, a significant disparity still exists in how they are paid, as women are paid less than their male counterparts.
Also, an important factor to check as a major contributor to the high disparity in the wages paid to women and men is occupational segregation, whereby there are women-centered and male dominate the male-centered occupations. Looking at this provision, women are subjected to low pay when they enter male-dominated occupations (Oelz et al., 2013). For example, a study conducted by the institute for women’s policy research in 2011 indicated that women who enter into auditing jobs or managerial jobs that are male-dominated occupations only earn 74% of what their male counterparts earned (Cursick & Montecinos, 2020). And this disparity, which explains how women even in high-paying positions are getting less pay than their male counterparts, is explained from an economist’s point of view using two important economic theories.
One theory is the human capital theory, and this theory will look at the number of hours women input in their jobs that equal the men’s positions. According to this theory, women and men in the same occupations may have the same education, training, and experience. Still, one thing that may hinder women from reaping full pay benefits as men is the fact that they may be held up by some family issues, such as caring for a child, and so will end up spending less time in their jobs as compared to men (Cho & Kramer, 2016). The other theory that explains why the pay gap exists between women and men is the discrimination theory. This theory explains the pre-judgment women are subjected to when they enter an employment premise (Cho & Kramer, 2016), whereby they are expected to be incapable of handling a certain position, say, for instance, a lawyer or an engineer, and due to the pre-judgment, they end up being compensated less than their male counterparts.
So, adding up to these theories, more factors that are likely to cause the wage gap is the industrial experience women have in various jobs. For instance, women in the same occupation as men may have limited experience, resulting in payment differences (Cursick & Montecinos, 2020). Also, their union status matters a lot in determining the kind of pay they will receive from their area of occupation. To understand why the disparity in wage pay among the two genders is a major issue in the United States, it’s important to understand that it’s also a global issue that has affected a great population of women, especially in the most industrialized countries (Cursick & Montecinos, 2020). When looking at OECD member countries, the disparity in pay is very evident; for instance, in Spain, Germany, and Poland, the disparity in wage pay with regards to gender is low, but in Japan is very high, and not forgetting that disparity still exist, regardless of whether its low or high.
The United States, however, is one of the nations that has contributed to its gender disparity when it comes to fair pay in employment because there are existing poor workplace policies that do not cater for paid parental leave to mothers, and provision of childcare programs, as compared to other developed nations (Churches, 2019). To add more on its contribution to the increased disparity in fair pay to women is the fact that policies that allow women to take breaks for breastfeeding are provided, except that the breaks are considered when the salaries are being calculated, which ends up creating a great barrier to equal pay between women and men (Churches, 2019). Also, the provision of these accounted feeding breaks can be blamed to serve as barriers for women to exercise less demanding job opportunities, which doesn’t fit well to their experience or their passion, leading to an increased population of unsatisfied women.
Many organizations that employ women, even the high-paying organizations, always employ a previous individual job salary to determine the amount of salary a woman will be subjected to. Most men are, therefore, in a better state to negotiate for better pay than their female counterparts, which is a major factor that adds to the advantage of men and disadvantage of women, and so the wage gap exists (Churches, 2019). In addition, a more disadvantageous factor is women being paid with regards to the ages, as this contributes to a significant number of women ending up being paid low wages.
The reason why the disparity in payment with regards to gender, which indicates the violation of women’s rights to equal pay is disadvantageous, is the fact that lack of equal pay results in women experiencing major consequences that affect the quality of their lives. Paying women less than males makes them feel undervalued and underappreciated, weakening their productivity level. Most would rather consider home and child-caring activities than doing a job they are paid less than they deserve (Churches, 2019). Being unequally paid reduces their courage and self-esteem to express their daily struggles in the jobs, and hence end up being more affected in their productivity level. When women are unequally paid, compared to their male counterparts, most may be on the verge of not being able to provide fully to their families, especially if they are single mothers. This scenario will likely increase their mental problems in terms of depression and anxiety (Stieg, 2020). And a major impact of unequal pay is the creation of a women’s population that sees it favorable to go into low-paying jobs. Yet, they have high skills and experience in carrying out high-paying jobs, such as being doctors or engineers.
The United States has been trying to ensure that women’s rights to equal pay are not violated for a long time without much success. The first intervention that was considered a great way through the violation of women’s rights to equal pay was being eliminated, is the enactment of the equal pay act, which President Kennedy initiated to end gender pay discrimination and the women equality day (Cho & Kramer, 2016). These two interventions were very significant in signaling the nation’s commitment to providing women with a chance to exercise their rights in the participation of political and civil affairs as a way of thriving in socio-economic environments (Cho & Kramer, 2016). The equal pay act states that regardless of sex, pay discrimination should not exist between men and women. Furthermore, all forms of compensation, regarding salary, vacations, bonuses, and holiday pay, should all be equally provided to men and women.
The acts allow women to report any instance of pay discrimination, and employers are still limited from dismissing employees who are likely to report any pay discrimination. But even with these provisions, the rights of women to equal pay have not been achieved yet, perhaps it is all about the nature of female employees on the need to avoid all the issues that come with involvement of court cases, or they want to maintain a specific image in the presence of their male counterparts (Cho & Kramer, 2016). The important consideration for the act is allowing employees to be provided differential payments regarding the merit they have, their production level, and seniority. The equal pay act is part of the fair labor standards that came into effect in 1938 in the United States and should be very well upheld.
The United States is a major body that has helped fight for women’s rights for a long period. The united nation, through its united nations women, have been able to fight for women’s equality in terms of equal entry into employment opportunities and equal pay. In most parts of the world, including the United States, women are limited in their entry to decision-making processes that involve economic matters, so they are not present to air out their grievances about equal pay (Women, 2013). The United Nations works in connection with other bodies created by the United Nations to foster women’s empowerment. For instance, it partners with INSTRAW, and UNIFEM, to ensure women’s rights to equality in employment and payment are well satisfied (Women, 2013). The INSTRAW, which was formed from the Commission on the Status of Women, formed under the United Nations, aimed to eliminate several factors that limited women in gaining full access to employment and equal pay.
These factors included; ensuring adequate education and elimination of general illiteracy among women, to ensure that they were on the same level as men in any given employment field, subjecting women to equal training opportunities that would provide them with full access to employment opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and also ensuring women had adequate paid leaves (Center, 2010). Furthermore, following the formation of INSTRAW, there was also the UNIFEM, an organization that aims to provide adequate funds to ensure that major strategies aimed at promoting women empowerment and equality are well promoted and supported (UNIFEM, 2010). another organization is the CEDAW, which aims to fight all forms of discrimination women face, especially when it comes to payment discrimination. This is an important aspect to support women’s well-being.
Generally, the main function of the United Nations women in the promotion of equality in pay with regards to women’s rights are; to provide adequate support of the Commission of the status of women, in coming up with important strategies that are going to protect women from unfair practices such as unfair pay, to support member countries to the united nation in upholding all standards aimed at ensuring equality in women matters are well maintained (Women, 2013), and ensuring that the united nations are held accountable concerning the monitorization of systems that are supposed to ensure equality in the provision of women’s rights to equal pay, and other important rights to women, that fight against women discrimination.
The international labor organization promotes various standards under which rights to equal pay should be observed. Convention 100 of the international labor organization states that remuneration incorporates ordinary, basic, and minimum wages that are directly or indirectly paid to the employee (Organization, 2012). It also states that equal pay should be provided to men and women, who are subjected to equal work value. It also requires all member countries that are part of the ILO to ensure that the principle of equal remuneration is provided to both men and women regarding jobs of equal value (Organization, 2012). It also requires that flexibility be held in matters of remuneration, such that an adjustment in terms of remuneration will be applicable. The organization also requires that the principle of equal remuneration be carried out in conjunction with a nations’ laws or legally established machinery that deals with wage determination.
But ILO also provides instances through which unequal pay is justifiable between men and women. For instance, jobs that have different values, but may seem similar, should be compensated with regards to inputs taken by any gender to promote the best work results (Organization, 2012). Therefore, job evaluation is an important strategy that can be used to evaluate the value of the job done by women, and those done by men, to understand which job values more and deserves more pay. According to ILO, the performance appraisal is another exception that must be considered in determining the remuneration of individuals, for instance, if the performance appraisal in both male and female in the same job differ (Organization, 2012), so should their remuneration because much focus is placed on the efforts placed by an individual employee to achieve a job objective.
It’s also of significant matter to differentiate between pay equity and equal remuneration to jobs of equal value before blaming an organization on the issue of inequality in payments. So, similar jobs and those not similar but are of the same value; deserve pay equity since no difference exists (Organization, 2012). Women-dominated jobs are usually under-valued as compared to men dominated jobs, an equal value which will mean equal pay, will therefore involve women and men’s jobs being performed under different conditions, jobs requiring different knowledge and skills, jobs requiring varying levels of input, jobs in different locations and jobs with different responsibilities for both genders (Organization, 2012). A few examples of jobs that have been considered as subject to equal pay because they are of equal values include jobs such as security jobs for men, and warden in accommodation jobs for women, gardener jobs for men and cleaning jobs for women, pharmacist jobs for men, and therapist jobs for women.
The domestic standards to ensure equal pay for both genders in the United States are the provisions for the equal pay act and the age and discrimination employment act. The acts are all concerned with ensuring that jobs of equal value, despite gender, get equal pay, and jobs of unequal value are provided with unequal pay (Cho & Kramer, 2016). The California pay act otherwise provides various exception scenarios when the fair pay act may not apply. For instance, in situations of merits, bona fide factors such as experiences or training, the quantity, and quality of production, and seniority, which refers to the length at which an individual has worked in an organization (Cho & Kramer, 2016). It also states the need for transparency in exposing the amount of pay an individual receives to deal with instances of discrimination that may exist and serve to protect individuals from unequal retaliations if they openly disclose their salaries.
When comparing the international standards to equal pay and the United States domestic standards to equal pay, some of the comparisons that may exist is that the international standards are highly applicable to many nations that are part of the international organization such as the UN and ILO. The domestic standards are only applicable to the United States, and so may end up favoring one group more than the other. The international standards are from many nations’ opinions and ideologies and are likely to be more effective. In contrast, the domestic standards tend to be formed by the elite groups in a nation and may tend to be highly biased. But all the standards share a similarity in ensuring that the main goal of equal pay for both genders is achieved.
International and domestic remedies
As the issue of unequal pay increased in the present decades, various remedies have been applied both at international and domestic levels to help deal with the pay discrimination issue and restore fair pay to women. Some of the international remedies that have been applied and have emerged to be successful in the past, and can be used in the case of united states in ensuring pay discrimination on the part of women are eliminated are as follows; the first remedy would be bolstering damages, this is where those women who have faced pay discrimination, being compensated for the losses they have encountered as a result of unfair payment at the job (Holmes & Corley, 2017). Applying this remedy will compel the employers to be keen on how they treat all their employees, despite their gender. Furthermore, this remedy assures solving the problem of pay discrimination since it has worked in countries such as Lithuania and Romania (Holmes & Corley, 2017). Another remedy would be incorporating the equality delegates; these delegates would serve to ensure that they oversee whether equality in the workplace in terms of payment is observed, depending on the employee they represent. If not, necessary actions would therefore take place.
The collective agreement approach would be another important approach in dealing with gender inequality when it comes to unequal pay in the United States. The collective agreement approach has been used in countries such as France, where a meeting is held to agree on the pay equality of all employees involved with a company, which is to be strictly observed and has helped ensure that pay equality is well maintained (Holmes & Corley, 2017). Incorporation of pay data reporting is also another approach that should be applicable in the United States in ensuring the balance is maintained, as it has successfully worked in the case of Austria, German, and Denmark (Holmes & Corley, 2017). The pay data reporting is when employers provide the respective government with adequate data illustrating how they pay their employees so that instances of gender inequality in terms of payment can be identified and be solved.
Apart from the international remedies to pay discrimination against women, domestic remedies have also been used and should be made clear so that the issue of gender inequality in payment may cease to exist. The first domestic remedy would be prohibiting secrecy to payment terms and ensuring that employees are protected from unfair dismissal from their work environments once they disclose their pay from strict and biased employers (Holmes & Corley, 2017). To ensure that each employee is aware of this federal law, adequate education on such law will serve a lot in ensuring that this law is adequately observed. Application of gender audits, whereby adequate information concerning pay data is collected to help eliminate the issue of gendered discrimination in payment procedures in various sectors of the economy, to ensure that women are provided with the ability to get what is enough to sustain their lives. Additionally, the violation of the provision of pay equality should be dealt with well with supreme courts, as it’s a matter of serving a humanitarian purpose (Holmes & Corley, 2017). Violation of equality pay would mean violating the equal pay act, which is a scenario that shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Other important interventions would be ensuring that women with adequate experiences and skills in jobs carried mostly by men are provided with the opportunity to practice their skills without interruption and be assured of good pay. They should also be provided with paid leaves and should not be charged for the time they use to take care of the children while at work (Holmes & Corley, 2017). These should be provided as an additional benefit to them. Therefore nothing should come as a limit to women receiving equal pay as men unless they don’t have experience, don’t deliver quality work, and have reduced productivity.
Recommendations
As women’s rights to fair pay is an important part of human rights, their violation is the same as a violation of women’s human rights. Therefore, in the coming future, there is a need to address the women’s right to fair pay by considering the following steps; first women should be provided with adequate opportunity to attain adequate knowledge and education in jobs that seem male-dominated, and these would only be achieved if societal stereotyping on the occupation of women ceases to exist, such that women can practice same professions as men and be provided with the same pay as men.
The next step would be to encourage women to air out their issues concerning fair pay without fear of their employers. This will easily help negotiate their need for fair pay as their male counterparts and help eliminate the issue of unfair pay practices. Carrying out seminars aimed at spreading information on the need to eliminate unfair pay, would also be significant, to create awareness of women’s mental problems such as depression and anxiety. The government should ensure that strict measures are placed regarding gender-based pay discrimination and that violation of such policies should be followed with heavy consequences. As pay discrimination in terms of gender also comes as a result of race, measures to eliminate and ensure all women, despite them being whites, blacks, Hispanic or native Americans, all should be subjected to equal pay, and by doing this, the issue of gender-based pay discrimination will at least reduce.
Conclusion
It’s important to note that unequal pay in terms of gender results in many negative consequences to a specific population of a nation, which can easily affect the positive economic growth if their rights are not well catered for. Therefore, a nation is filled with happy and satisfied individuals who can drive better economic productivity if the matter of equal pay is observed with the seriousness it deserves and is carried out in the best way possible. Therefore, all governments and international institutions need to ensure that all factors favorable to equality in pay for both genders, especially the women, are applicable for a better prosperous future that is limited in conflicts but filled with better growth and success.
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