The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States labor law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex. It was signed into law on June 10, 1963, by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program. In passing the bill, Congress stated that sex discrimination:
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full range of payments and benefits, including basic pay, non-salary payments, bonuses and allowances. Some countries have moved faster than others in addressing equal pay.
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, gender, sex, religion, national origin, and physical or mental disability. State and local laws often protect additional characteristics such as marital status, veteran status and caregiver/familial status. Earnings differentials or occupational differentiation—where differences in pay come from differences in qualifications or responsibilities—should not be confused with employment discrimination. Discrimination can be intended and involve disparate treatment of a group or be unintended, yet create disparate impact for a group.
The gender pay gap in the United States is a measure between the earnings of male and females in the workforce. When calculating the pay gap, non-adjusted versus adjusted pay gap is utilized. The adjusted pay gap takes into consideration the differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education and job experience, whereas the non-adjusted pay gap is the overall difference of gross hourly earnings of males and females in the United States. The non-adjusted average female annual salary is around 80% of the average male salary, compared to 95% for the adjusted average salary.
Economic discrimination is discrimination based on economic factors. These factors can include job availability, wages, the prices and/or availability of goods and services, and the amount of capital investment funding available to minorities for business. This can include discrimination against workers, consumers, and minority-owned businesses.
Gender inequality is the social phenomenon in which people are not treated equally on the basis of gender. This inequality can be caused by gender discrimination or sexism. The treatment may arise from distinctions regarding biology, psychology, or cultural norms prevalent in the society. Some of these distinctions are empirically grounded, while others appear to be social constructs. While current policies around the world cause inequality among individuals, it is women who are most affected. Gender inequality weakens women in many areas such as health, education, and business life. Studies show the different experiences of genders across many domains including education, life expectancy, personality, interests, family life, careers, and political affiliation. Gender inequality is experienced differently across different cultures and also affects non-binary people.
Occupational inequality is the unequal treatment of people based on gender, sexuality, height, weight, accent, or race in the workplace. When researchers study trends in occupational inequality they usually focus on distribution or allocation pattern of groups across occupations, for example, the distribution of men compared to women in a certain occupation. Secondly, they focus on the link between occupation and income, for example, comparing the income of whites with blacks in the same occupation.
Occupational segregation is the distribution of workers across and within occupations, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender. Other types of occupational segregation include racial and ethnicity segregation, and sexual orientation segregation. These demographic characteristics often intersect. While a job refers to an actual position in a firm or industry, an occupation represents a group of similar jobs that require similar skill requirements and duties. Many occupations are segregated within themselves because of the differing jobs, but this is difficult to detect in terms of occupational data. Occupational segregation compares different groups and their occupations within the context of the entire labor force. The value or prestige of the jobs are typically not factored into the measurements.
The Equality Act 2006 was complemented with specific duties later on. The general Equality Duty states that people should not be discriminated according to their age, race, gender, religion, disability and sexual orientation and required public bodies to take seriously threats of harassment or discrimination on the grounds of gender reassignment.
The Paycheck Fairness Act is a proposed United States labor law that would add procedural protections to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act as part of an effort to address the gender pay gap in the United States. A Census Bureau report published in 2008 stated that women's median annual earnings were 77.5% of men's earnings. Recently this has narrowed, as by 2018, this was estimated to have decreased to women earning 80-85% of men's earnings. One study suggests that when the data is controlled for certain variables, the residual gap is around 5-7%; the same study concludes that the residual is because "hours of work in many occupations are worth more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous. That is, in many occupations, earnings have a nonlinear relationship with respect to hours."
Gender pay gap in Australia looks at the persistence of a gender pay gap in Australia. In Australia, the principle of "equal pay for equal work" was introduced in 1969. Anti-discrimination on the basis of sex was legislated in 1984.
In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races and ethnicities. Asian Americans have the highest median income, followed by White Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure, high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination and deep-seated and systemic anti-Black racism—and the topic is highly controversial.
In Russia the wage gap exists and statistical analysis shows that most of it cannot be explained by lower qualifications of women compared to men. On the other hand, occupational segregation by gender and labor market discrimination seem to account for a large share of it.
Gender inequality in the United States has been diminishing throughout its history and significant advancements towards equality have been made beginning mostly in the early 1900s. However, despite this progress, gender inequality in the United States continues to persist in many forms, including the disparity in women's political representation and participation, occupational segregation, and the unequal distribution of household labor. The alleviation of gender inequality has been the goal of several major pieces of legislation since 1920 and continues to the present day. As of 2021, the World Economic Forum ranks the United States 30th in terms of gender equality out of 149 countries.
The gender pay gap or gender wage gap is the average difference between the remuneration for men and women who are working. Women are generally found to be paid less than men. In the United States, for example, the average annual salary of a woman is 83% that of a man. However, this figure changes when controlled for confounding factors such as differences in hours worked, occupations chosen, education, job experience, and level of danger at work. Attempts to control for these factors arrive at adjusted figures from 95% to 99%.
The gender pay gap in New Zealand is the difference in the median hourly wages of men and women in New Zealand. In 2020 the gender pay gap is 9.5%. It is an economic indicator used to measure pay equality. The gender pay gap is an official statistic published annually by Stats NZ sourced from the Household Labour Force Survey.
Gender pay gap in India refers to the difference in earnings between women and men in the paid employment and the labor market. For the year 2013, the gender pay gap in India was estimated to be 24.81%. Further, while analyzing the level of female participation in the economy, this report slots India as one of the bottom 10 countries on its list. Thus, in addition to unequal pay, there is also unequal representation, because while women constitute almost half the Indian population, their representation in the work force amounts to only about one-fourth of the total.
Authored by State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, the California Fair Pay Act is an amendment to the existing California labor laws that protects employees who want to discuss about their co-workers' wages as well as eliminating loopholes that allowed employers to justify inequalities in pay distribution between opposite sexes. The bill is an extension of the California Equal Pay Act of 1949, which was originally intended to enforce equal pay.
The gender pay gap in the United States tech industry is the divergence in pay between men and women who work in areas such as software engineering. Despite applying for the same jobs at the same companies, women receive job offers that pay less than their male counterparts 63% of the time. In 2018, reports show that for every dollar the average man made, women only made 82 cents, and women from underrepresented communities earn even less. State legislatures have begun to take action to solve the gender pay gap with California leading the way, following Iceland's example. The gap does not affect women of all races equally, and discourages women, specifically those that are underrepresented minorities, from continuing to pursue opportunities in the technology industry. The wage gap in the tech industry is a result of a multitude of factors including lower initial offers and lack of negotiations. As the tech industry becomes more influential in the United States economy, it will be important that firms offer equal pay for equal for equal work and be intentional in constructing applicant pools that are more representative of the population at large. Companies such as Apple, Amazon, and Google have been proactive in attempting to rectify the pay gap and have begun committing financial resources to eliminate the gap. Reports in 2019 showed the pay gap narrowed to 3% after remaining at 4% for the previous two years.
Gender pay gap in sports is the persistence of unequal pay in sports, particularly for female athletes who do not receive equal revenue compared to their counterparts, which differs depending on the sport. The gender pay gap has not evolved since 1983, even though the two genders both equally influence world records and best performances in our nations sports teams.According to the research conducted by BBC, "a total of 83% of sports now reward men and women equally". However, it does not mean that the wage gap in sports has narrowed or disappeared. In 2018, Forbes released the list of the top 100 highest-paid athletes, all of them being male athletes. A similar situation also occurred in 2017, where there was only one female athlete – tennis player Serena Williams — who joined the list and ranked No.56. Billie Jean King brought awareness to the issue of unequal pay in the early 1970s, when she was awarded $2,900 less than her male counterpart at the Italian Open. The timeline of the gender pay gap in sports displays the significant events that have occurred since the 1970s.
