Gender Stratification: Structural Sexism (Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht)
As most sociologists agree, the social structure underlies
and perpetuates much of the sexism in society. Structural sexism, also known as
institutional sexism, refers to the ways the organization of society and
specifically its institutions subordinate individuals and groups based on their
sex classification. Structural sexism has resulted in significant differences
in the education and income levels, occupational and political involvement, and
civil rights of women and men.
Income and Structural
Sexism
In 2012, full-time working women in the United States
earned, on the average, 81 percent of the weekly median earnings of full-time
working men (Hegewisch et al. 2012). Further, cashiers, waitresses, maids and
household cleaners, and retail sales workers, four of the most common
occupations for women, have 40-hour-a-week median incomes below the federally
established poverty level for a family of four (Hegewisch & Matite 2013).
The gender pay gap varies over time. By decade, in 1980,
1990, 2000, and 2010, women’s annual earnings as a percentage of men’s
increased from 60 percent to 72 percent, 74 percent, and 77 percent,
respectively. As indicated, closing the gender gap has slowed down since the
1980s and early 1990s (Hegewisch et al. 2012). At the present rate of progress,
it is predicted that the gender gap will not be closed until 2057 (IWPR 2013).
Racial differences also exist. Although women, in general
earn 81 percent as much as men, Black American women earn just 68 percent of
white men’s salaries, and Hispanic American women earn just 59 percent of white
men’s salaries (Hegewisch et al. 2012). Even among celebrities, a significant
income gap exists. According to Forbes magazine, the maximum salary for a
Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) player is $107, 000, while Kobe
Bryant signed a contract for $30.5 million for the 2013-2014 season with the
Los Angeles Lakers (Badenhausen 2013).
Why does the gender pay gap exist? There are several
arguments as to why the gender pay gap exists One, the human capital
hypothesis holds that pay differences between females and males are a
function of differences in women’s and men’s levels of education, skills,
training, work experience, and the like. For example, Rose and Hartman (2008),
using a longitudinal data set, found that over a 15 year period, women worked
fewer years than men and, when they worked, they worked fewer hours per year.
Rose and Hartman concluded that over “…the 15 years, the more likely a women is
to have dependent children and be married, the more likely she is to be a low
earner and have fewer hours in the labor market” (Rose & Hartman 2008,
p.1). Bertrand et al. (2009) reported similar findings, concluding that the
“presence of children is associated with less accumulation of job experience,
more career interruptions, and shorter work hours for female MBAs but not for
male MBAs (p. 24). Based on their analysis, the authors concluded that a decade
after graduation, female MBAs earn an average annual salary of $243,481 and
male MBAs earn an average annual salary of $442,353. Lower incomes over time
create a significant deficit later in life. This is particularly true given a
woman’s higher life expectancy and the exhaustion of household savings when her
husband becomes ill (Smith et al. 2012).
One variation of the human capital hypothesis is called the life-cycle
human capital hypothesis. Here it is argued that women have less incentive
to invest in education and marketable skills because they know that, as wives
and mothers, they will be working less than their male counterparts and that
their careers will be interrupted by family responsibilities. Alternatively,
men’s incentives to acquire marketable skills increase with greater family
responsibilities and it is this human capital difference, or so it is argued,
that is responsible for the female-male pay gap (Polachek 2006).
Human capital theorists also argue that women make
educational choices (e.g., school attended, major, etc.) that limit their
occupational opportunities and future earnings. Women, for example, are more
likely to major in the humanities , education, or the social sciences rather
than science and engineering, which results in reduced incomes (Corbett &
Hill 2012). Research also indicates, however, that after controlling for
“college major, occupation, economic sector, hours worked, months unemployed
since graduation, GPA, type of undergraduate institution, institution
selectivity, age, geographical region, and marital status…a 7 percent
difference in the earnings of male and female college graduates one year after
graduation was still unexplained” (Corbett & Hill 2012, p.8).
The second explanation for the gender gap is called the devaluation
hypothesis. It argues that women are paid less because the work they
perform is socially defined as less valuable than the work men perform. Guy and
Newman (2004) argue that these jobs are undervalued in part because they
include a significant amount of emotion work, that is, work that involves
caring, negotiating, and empathizing with people, which is rarely specified in
job descriptions or performance evaluations.
Finally, there is evidence that, even when women and men
have equal education and experience (and, therefore, not a matter of human
capital differences) and are in the same occupations (and, therefore, not a
matter of women’s work being devalued), pay differences remain. Men make more
than women in each of the 10 most sex-segregated occupations for females and
males. Even among elementary and middle school teachers, a profession that is
81 percent female, women earn a weekly median salary of $921 and men earn a
weekly median salary of $1,128, a difference of $10,350 annually (Hegewisch
& Matite 2013).
Sources
Mooney, Linda, Knox, David, and Schacht, Caroline 2015.
Understanding Social Problems. Cengage Learning: Boston, MA.
Hegewisch, Ariane, Claudia Williams, and Angela Edwards.
2012 (March). “The Gender Wage Gap: 2012.” Institute for Women’s Policy
Research. Available at www.iwpr.org
Hegewisch, Ariane, and Maxwell Matite. 2013 (April). The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation.
Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Available at www.iwpr.org
Badenhausen, Kurt. 2013. “Maria Sharapova Tops Lists of the
World’s Highest Paid Female Athletes.” Forbes,
August 5. Available at www.forbes.com
Rose, Stephen J., and Heidi Hartman. 2008 (February). “Still
a Man’s Labor Market: The Long-Term Earnings Gap.” IWPR# C366. New York: Institute
for Women’s Policy Research.
Polachek, Soloman W. 2006. “How the Life-Cycle Human Capitol
Model Explains Why the Gender Gap Narrowed.” In The Declining Significance of
Race, Francine D. Blau, Mary C. Brinton, and David B. Grusky, eds. (pp.
102-124). New York: Russell Sage.
Corbett, Christianne, and Catherine Hill. 2012 (October 24).
Graduating to a Pay Gap: The Earnings of
Women and Men One Year After College Graduation. American Association of
University Women. Available at www. Aauw.org
Guy, Mary Ellen, and Meredith A. Newman. 2004. “Women’s
Jobs, Men’s Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor.” Public Administration Review 64:289-299
No comments:
Post a Comment