Kahn and Blau wrote this article to explore the reasons why the gender pay gap exists but also why it has decreased over time. The reasons considered were: occupation, capital income, race, and industry. They brought up several different reasons that are rarely discussed. Couples may have the wife drop off of the labor market to take care of kids. Women are more likely to work-white collar jobs could have benefited women. Papers addressing the gender gap are always on the act and I found it very interesting that these theorists tried to say this helped women in the workplace.
The recession of 2001 is another reason why the pay gap has decreased. It makes sense that if the job market is decline, pay, and competition increases. A business would be more likely to pick the cheaper employee since this is a capitalist society.
Women are increasing attending college and graduate programs. For the first time ever, in 2000, over 50% of law school admissions were females. Even with all the controlling factors there is a 20% pay gap which is unexplained. I believe some of this is from discrimination but not all of it. In 30 years the gap has been cut in half which is a huge improvement.
I’d Rather Be Rich: Keister set out to explain wealth mobility, whose is rich, how people become rich, and what behaviors help families to change classes upward. I believe she wrote this article to show that a small group of people control a majority of the wealth. That the distribution is unequal and that people are living above their means because of debt in attempt to gain wealth.Wealth is savings, investments, real estate, businesses, homes, and vehicles. Income is one’s salary and wages from work or government payments. Debt or liabilities are mortgages, consumer debt, student loans, car loans, home equity loans, and credit cards. It is easier for individuals coming from wealthy families to stay wealthy because they have inheritances, educational, and occupational opportunities. There are other factors such as occupation, marriage, children, education, and savings that interact.
Wealth also gives people financial comfort in case of an emergency or unemployment. A small percentage of people own most of the wealth. There are more millionaires now then there were in the past. The rich are only getting richer.
Families are becoming wealthier over time. Their net worth is growing from $239,110 in 1989 to $325,180 in 2001. The stock market has a role in wealthier for American households. It was uncommon for middle class families to have stock in the 70’s and 80’s but it is now common practice. Families owned more houses in 2000’s because mortgage rates were an all time low.
Debt has also increased. A large number of students have student loans. It isn’t uncommon to see people working to pay student loans off for five to ten years after college. People are living above their means buying a bigger house or a new car without thinking about the long term consequences. If people are really serious about gaining wealth then they should invest in getting a higher education rather then the newest car or clothing. People are trying to look and act like the upper class without the means to support it. This reminded me of Veblen and his leisure theory.
Too much of the total wealth is controlled by a small proportion. It is going to take determination and effort for people to gain the wealth they are striving for. Kiester didn’t give any suggestions or resolutions to solve this problem.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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While the summary above was nice, I feel that especially for the first article I find the Gender Pay Gap article to be absolutely ridiculous. While I can appreciate that the women's pay gap has increased 20% in thirty years, personally with all this money and time that I am putting into college I will be livid if some guy who also put in the same time and money as I have and has the same job as I have is paid more, there will be hell. I am going into Criminal Justice and obviously generally being a male-dominated field, being paid less for the same job is not going to fly for me.
ReplyDeleteGranted, while women were at a disadvantage in education and experience many years ago, I feel that in today's society seeing how many more women attend college today than men it should be that women have completely wiped out the pay gap. The unexplained pay gap that still is present today is unnecessary Although, reflecting back to Simone De Beauvior, who said men as well as women would rather be under the the direction of a man rather than a women in the same position. It is unfortunate, but until women gain the same RESPECT as men, the pay gap will still exist, despite the amount of education.
As for the "I'd rather be rich", pretty much sounds like the same old song and dance that we've been told since entering the world. The rich get richer as the poor get poorer. Despite the gap decreasing between the classes in the 50's, with Reaganism, (which isn't even touched on WHY the rich suddenly boomed again) the rich got even richer and the poor stayed broke. Granted, when it comes to economics and assets I am not the most educated on the topic, but it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the rich will undoubtedly live an easier life due to their money. As discussed in class, if you have the money you can make more money. But those who may have a medical emergency and cannot afford the proper care, they will generally if they survive never be able to return to work. While the same person in an upper class situation falls ill, but receives proper treatment will heal and be able to return to work and make even more money that they didn't use to pay for their treatment. While the poor person goes further into debt due to outstanding hospital bills and has even less of a chance to get out of debt without a job. Overall, I think trying to end this problem is only plausible when Americans can throw out the idea that you should only look out for yourself and start helping their fellow american. Psh, but that's never going to happen.
Although I liked to summary I do not think that because of the 2001 recession should be one of the reasons that women are still paid less. It is ridicules to think that I work just as hard as men do and still think that I get paid less.
ReplyDeleteEven though men still are our CEO’s and are usually high up in companies, they can change things. Women are more likely to finish college and even go to college. Soon women are going to be dominating the work force. I also think that women are more competitive to get a job because they know that men sometimes will only hire them because of their looks. We have to go out and show that we are good at what we do. Men do not respect women for what they can do and accomplish, and until they do we will be treated unfairly.
Going off of “I’d rather be rich” people gain wealth by what they have not their income. I know that my family has this and that just because they say that the rich are getting richer does not mean people have to go to extreme measures to keep their wealth. In today’s society we are going through a depression and we are trying everything to stay afloat in this economy.
The Gender Pay Gap didn’t really tell me anything I haven’t already learned in various other reports. The ideas that men tend to have positions of authority when women tend to have clerical or other lower-paying jobs, that women traditionally leave the workforce to raise children, and that women are sometimes hired as cheaper labor than men are concepts that have been taught to me since freshman sociology. While the concept isn’t new, I still found the paragraph interesting that discussed how couples might make the decision to let the woman drop out of school or the workforce rather than the man because he has more earning potential. This is sad because there may be millions of women who have the desire, and are certainly qualified, to better their lives through advanced education and by contributing to the workforce, but they are held back and pushed down because they understand that they don’t have the ability to financially support their family the way a man could.
ReplyDeleteI’d Rather Be Rich was slightly more interesting, but fairly repetitive as well. It explained wealth vs. income vs. net worth thoroughly, and discussed the numerous benefits the wealthy have over the poor, such as more education opportunities, financial protection against things like medical emergencies, and overall better well-being (duh). It also spoke about the evidence that the rich are getting richer. The number of billionaires in the US more than tripled between 1993 and 2000. The author attributes this to “highly valued (perhaps overvalued) Internet companies that create enormous paper fortunes when they go public” (254). Obviously wealth distribution is extremely unequal in the US, and its important to realize when studying social inequality, but this chapter also didn’t really teach me anything I didn’t already know, and it definitely didn’t offer any good theories or solutions for change.