The Gender Wage Gap is One of the most Important Issues

The gender wage gap is one of the most important issues that people have in this society. The gender wage gap is defined as, the difference earnings between men and women. For example, if men and women had the same background for education, men are most likely going to have a better position or a higher pay rather than women. The jobs that require more work like doing becoming a doctor or a firefighter, these are most likely going to be a male’s job.

Women would most likely become a nurse or a teacher rather than the jobs that require extra work. The gender wage gap is due to discrimination in different culture and race along with women inequality. Talcott Parsons’ was an American sociologist of the classical tradition which he was best known for his social action theory and structural functionalism. Talcott Parsons’ system levels consist of a cultural system, social system, personality system, and behavior organism as a system. The cultural system, Parsons’ definition would be meaning. Examples of meanings would be the morals and values that ones’ have. It is to hold society together.

The social system is the role that ones’ play. It consists of two or more people. It helps to understand how people are while interacting with each other. The personality system is how society influence the actions that ones’ act towards others. Lastly, the behavior organism as a system is that it is important where we live is important. Talcott Parsons’ theoretical approach of structural functionalism, states that “society is comparable to a biological organism whose parts fulfill functions necessary to the survival the whole.” “It would be deeply unjust if women are systematically underpaid – if they face different prices for the same productive characteristics – relative to men” (Webber, 2015). According to Webber, he is saying that if a female were doing the same jobs as the men, men would get a higher paycheck than the female and this is unfair. Parsons focuses on the structure of the society, meaning the network of roles that are constant over time. The main role of men is to work and to provide for the family. The women also go to work, but they usually get a lower paying wage than the men.

They also have a “second job.” This second job requires housework. “One negative perspective on working mothers identified by previous researches was that society still viewed “traditional” mothering as ideal since the mother’s focus is solely on the children. A stay-at-home mother was seen as a duty, not a job. Societal norms suggest that a stay-at-home mother prioritizes her family and children above financial contribution and a career” (Rushing, Sparks 2017.) As Parsons’ discussed in his social system, it consists of four major fulfillments. This is an example of the Latency part of what makes up the social system. Families must be motivated and able to manage the functions that they have with the family. This is a way to main a system in equilibrium. If the family does not play their roles correctly, this can lead to dysfunctional. This leads to women inequality because women are not being treated equally with the amount that they do compare to men. Talcott Parsons’ view family as a set of roles that links men and women together.

From his perspective, women should carry out roles that provide care and safety for children. “Other working mothers discussed the feeling of being empowered and did not feel the need to clarify this meaning. These working mothers identified having a “sense of pride” in their ability to transmit their progressive and egalitarian values and beliefs to their children” (Rushing, Sparks 2017.) In other words, women that tend to stay home to be a stay at home mother is satisfied to be at home to take care of their children and doing house chores. Parsons’ view on males is to go to work and earn incomes to support the family at home. Both of these roles link men and women together, and if this was not the case, things would have been different in the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap is due to discrimination of culture and race. “In general, the argument is that high-resource organizations can afford to employ higher-paid white male labor. Women and African Americans are systematically denied access to the most favorable employment organizations.

Employers respond to pressure from advantaged employees or their own discriminatory preferences when they refuse to hire women or members of minority groups.” (Tomaskovic-Devey 1993.) In the labor force, employers are willing to hire male instead of women. One of the reasons that this might be is because a woman can get pregnant and then take leave. The employers would rather have someone for a long term rather than someone for a short term. In society, this is how the norms and some religion work. These are the roles that people have and play. Some of the statics that I found for gender wage gap in “Racial, gender wage gaps persist in the U.S. despite some progress,” is that blacks in 2015 earned just 75% as much as whites in median hourly earnings and women earned 83% as much as men. White men are often used in the labor workforce that was led to 33% in 2015. The hourly wages for black and Hispanic men were about 15$ compared to a white man that was paid 21$. Asian men were paid the most of 24$ which is more than what white men were getting paid. (Pattien 2015)

These statics shows that Hispanic and blacks were getting paid the least amount, which leads to the discrimination of race. Although gender wage gap is unavoidable, there are laws that are made that society has to follow. According to Parsons’ one of the four requisites would be integration. This is when laws and rules that the society has to follow because it was made so the society is maintained as equilibrium. Talcott Parsons’ theory was the social system. Stay at home mom is responsible for teaching their children the norms and values of society. This is important because the children can adopt to the roles as they grow up. Talcott Parsons’ system is a way to hold a society together. It is like holding a family together. The men work extra hard to bring income to the family. The women which is the wife or a stay home mother that takes care of the children. They also teach their children at a young age to know the roles when they grow up, they can pass it on to the next generation. Without these roles in society, the society will turn out to be dysfunctional.

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