How do social, political, and economic factors influence the conditions of American women in the workplace?

The United States had come a long way since The Equal Pay Act in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy signed the Fair Labor Standards Act, which abolishes wage disparities based on sex. Through my investigation, I have found good sources that have helped me understand this social issue more politically and economically. The First Source I read was “Equal Pay an Introductory Guide.” I thought this source was an excellent introduction to my essay because it helps me introduce relevant topics related to this social issue. This source touches diverse topics such as the government’s role on equal remuneration and the institutions and procedures to enforce the law. This first source was first published in 2013 by the International Labour Organization. In my next source, I decided to go with a source that carries this problem to the present and the challenge of equal pay in the labor market. This source is called “Women, Work, and Inequality.” and is a Scholarly source that carries many editors responsible for the publication of this book, such as the support of the library Congress Cataloging for publication data on women, work and inequality. My third scholarly source is title “Promoting Equity Gender-Neutral Job Evaluation For Equal Pay.” In this book published by the International Labour Organization, the author reflects on the causes of wage discrimination and the principles of pay equity. This source helped me better understand how the scope of the principle of pay equity works and its impact on an organization’s reputation. The source I discarded while looking in my research was “The Unions and the fight for inequality.” This book’s content gives me a lot of detail on feminist history, and I think that is why I discard this topic from the others. I didn’t want to make this essay too personal by talking about the idea of women as housewives and the long fight for feminism during the past years, reason enough to decided not to include this book. While an article I have been considering to include in my essay is a short video from Youtube about a topic that recently caught my attention, this video explains women’s soccer equal pay fight. The title of this video is “Why it’s impossible to give the USWNT equal pay.” This short clip shows the player’s prominence and willingness to change, expressing their frustration by seeing the huge compensation gap that receives the World Cup participants, a pool of 400$ million for a team of 32 men, while only 30$ million for a 24 women’s teams. I have been focusing more on my scholarly sources than my web sources; I have focused on the details about the past Instead of the present. For now, to the first draft, I would look up more recent sources that would help understand this issue, like how much during this pandemic time, the pay gap has been increasing. How much money do men that work from home compares to women that do the same? 

 

Bibliography:

 

Oelz, Martin, Shauna Olney, and Manuela Tomei. Equal Pay: An Introductory Guide. Geneva: International Labour Office, 2013. Print.

Chicha, Marie-Thérèse. Promoting Equity Gender-Neutral Job Evaluation for Equal Pay : a Step-by-Step Guide . Geneva: International Labour Office, 2008. Print.

Closing the Gap : Equal Pay for Women Workers : Hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, First Session, on Examining Closing the Gap Relating to Equal Pay for Women Workers, April 12, 2007. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2009. Print.

Gregory, Jeanne, Rosemary Sales, and Ariane Hegewisch. Women, Work and Inequality: The Challenge of Equal Pay in a Deregulated Labour Market. New York: Palgrave Macmillan Limited, 1999. Web.