Topic > Sexism in modern society: factors contributing to gender inequality

Global gender inequality in relation to: education, employment and wages Gender has become a prevalent topic in recent years, as it has driven more and more people apart as society questions what gender is and how many there really are. Former Olympian Bruce Jenner, now Kaitlyn Jenner, has also been the subject of gender discussion; as it apparently opened many minds to the transgender option. Despite these successes in terms of accepting multiple genders beyond the original social norms of just two genders (male and female), there is still gender inequality that is seemingly the white elephant in the rooms of every continent. Women have been fighting for equality for nearly a decade now, and while many believe the problem is non-existent, it still remains a turbulent issue in much of the world. Women still see gaps (compared to men) in education, employment and wages earned. Although these gaps have decreased with the introduction of women's suffrage, the problem still exists and must be addressed. This essay examines three broad areas in which women are oppressed due to gender and how this affects the world as a whole. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In the United States gender in education is not considered a major issue or even a problem. There is no longstanding gender segregation in schools, and educational opportunities appear to be more tied to wealth than anything else. Yet in a large number of countries, female education is lacking or absent, and gender anomalies in education are found. To first analyze where female education is most lacking, we need to examine third world countries. A team of researchers examined how gender inequality in education, in countries across sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the Middle East, would affect women's earnings later in life. Two indicators of gender inequality were used to collect data: one is the gap in primary education enrollment ratios between women and men and the other is the gap in secondary education enrollment ratios between women and men. To subsequently compare these results with inequality in wage gaps, they used time series and cross-sectional data that were subsequently compared with results obtained from pooled cross-sections and fixed-effects panel data estimates. This led them to two main conclusions, the first is that “gender inequalities in primary and secondary education exert a negative effect on income” and the second is that “this effect is stronger in MENA countries” (Baliamoune, 2015 ). The importance of this piece is not only to focus on the big difference in how females are treated in schools compared to males in other countries, but also that this will have a bigger impact than just gender inequality, and then will enter the salary field. inequality that only promotes gender inequality in a different field. When gender inequality is not addressed, it is left to manifest and grow into a major problem as it is in third world countries, which only leads to greater inequality in other fields. Other countries are also grappling with this problem, as “South and West Asia have the largest gender gap in the out-of-school population: 80% of out-of-school girls are unlikely to ever start school, compared to 16%of children who do not attend school" (Unicef, 2015). Yet many don't think there is inequality in countries like America or other first world countries, even though statistics are starting to show otherwise. Globally, “an estimated 31 million girls of primary school age and 32 million girls of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2013,” although these statistics depend predominantly on numbers from third world countries, several millions also come from the first world. countries (Unicef, 2015).Yet in Australia, their numbers do not match the rest of the data “of all women aged 2024, 89.5% achieved qualifications of 12 years or above, compared to 83.4% of men in the same age group. Of all women age 2,529, 42.0% have earned a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to 30.6% of men in the same age group. The same percentage of women (5.5%) and men (5.5%) aged 1574 and 1574 had a postgraduate qualification” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2015). Those who use these statistics to show that gender inequality is slowly improving, then think about how, if women are getting more degrees, why is there still growing inequality for women in getting jobs and fair pay? Gender inequality is not improving. Often, when talking about the problem of women not being able to find jobs as quickly as men, the quick retort is that women are often begged to go to engineering schools and then quickly placed into jobs after graduation. While there has been better progress in placing women in math and science careers, there are still large gaps in other fields, in other countries, and in general. In the United States alone, only 34 women have served as governors, while men have held 2,319; furthermore, women make up 51% of the US population but only 17% of Congress” (Pew Research Center, 2015). Women in politics often find it more difficult to obtain power or jobs due to the fact that politics is often considered a masculine profession and dominated primarily by men. Women actually fight for almost all powerful occupations, as can be seen in the statistics regarding the percentage of women holding “powerful” jobs; women hold 12.0% of presidential positions, 23.7% of directors, as well as representing 17.3% of CEOs and 26.1% of managers with strategic responsibilities in the Agency's reporting organisations. A third (33.5%) of the Agency's reporting organizations do not have key managers who are women” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2015). This is not the only profession where women are struggling, as women are not only struggling to find work, but also to keep it with the same benefits that their male counterparts receive. It was shown that “more women worked part-time than full-time in three of eight major occupations: sales clerks; Community and personal service workers; and workers; while in all eight occupations more men were employed full-time than part-time.” (Agency for Gender Equality in the Workplace, 2015). This means that women are more likely to be employed part-time than their equally skilled male counterparts, meaning that women will end up earning less (resulting in a widening of the class gender gap). The struggle to get and keep a job is only part of the gender struggle, there also seems to be a lack of benefits for women in the workplace, "among the total workers,over a quarter of women (26.5%) and a fifth of men (20.7%) were not entitled to paid leave. In seven of eight occupations, a higher proportion of women were not entitled to paid leave than men” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2015). Essentially, this means that more men than women are eligible for paid time off; once again allowing men to save more money during holidays or breaks, which in return creates even greater gender inequality across wages and classes. Wage as a factor in gender inequality has been a much-discussed topic, as it has never been entirely fair, and there is no doubt that it exists. The wage gap is not only a prevalent problem in third world countries but also in America, as many politicians (particularly women) have called attention to the issue. In a study conducted in Greece and other Balkan countries, possible factors contributing to why a gender pay gap exists were examined. By collecting data sets from self-reporting surveys, researchers were able to come to the conclusion that “progress in gender equality at work stalled during the recession” (Anastasiou, 2015); stating that their data indicated that “female labor force participation remains lower than male participation, women account for the majority of unpaid work, are overrepresented in the informal sector and among the poor, face significant wage gaps compared to to male colleagues, while female representation in high public and private levels, positions in the sector and entrepreneurship remain low” (Anastasiou, 2015). Essentially they found that women were generally paid less and had a higher level of unemployment than men before and after the recession. Economic recessions are not isolated events and can be observed around the world, which is why this research is critical to understanding and trying to correct the wage gap linked to gender inequality. Greece is not the only country that struggles or has ever struggled with financial problems like these, it is in the fear that any country could go into recession again that one realizes that this gender gap may soon apply to more Western civilizations and create an even balance. wider global gap. It's not just countries in recession that face gender inequality: Australia, for example, has startling pay gaps between women and men. For a man and a woman working full time, the average gender pay gap is 17.9% and the beneficiaries are men; furthermore, the average full-time weekly wage difference between women and men is $284.20 (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2015). Considering there are just over 52 weeks in a year, that means men earn on average about $15,000 more per year than women. This gap is not due to the jobs available to women or the jobs that women choose more frequently, as the gender pay gap also exists in some professional fields. 14.3% and 11.9% more than women. .... IT was an area where women earned more than men in 2013, but where men earned more than women in 2014. Medicine had no earnings differences between women and men in 2013, but in 2014 there was a gender pay gap in favor of men (0.5%)” (Workplace Gender Equality Agency, 2015). This means that for a man and a woman with the same job, the man will on average earn a little more than his female counterpart, which can best be seen through the average gender gap.