The Gender Pay Gap

This article shows via graphs how the gender pay gap between industries vary and also with a link below shows by state where the largest pay gaps occur between genders. Just because their is a pay gap does not mean that there is discrimination. Job types are always a factor on where you live and what industry you go into.

There is not one state in the U.S. that women make more than men on average. The widest gap between wages is in Wyoming where women only make 65.5 cents per dollar to men. Washington, D.C. is the smallest gap where women earned 88.2 cents per dollar. On average in 2009 in the U.S. women made 78.2 percent of what men made.

The gender pay gap also can be classified by industry where the largest gap in wages occurs in the Financial Activities industry with women earning 72% of men's wages. The smallest gap is in the construction industry where men and women make virtually the same amount of money.

When looking into the gender pay gap by location the survey conducted indicated that  in Puerto Rico women were making 103.3 cents per dollar compared to their male counterparts.

Why do you think that their is such a difference in the gap between the U.S. states and Puerto Rico?

The Gender Pay Gap

-Aimee Rankovich

Women still struggling to break the glass ceiling

Link to article: http://www.seattlepi.com/specials/glassceiling/292359_glassceiling-main15.html

This article points out the differences between political and corporate strides in gender equity.  Since the article is from a Seattle newspaper it mainly focuses on the state of Washington, however the same can hold true for states across the country.

The article mentions that Washington state made several strides in gender equality in politics.  The state elected a female governor and two female senate members.  The picture is a completely different story when analyzing the top public corporations in the state.  Fewer than 1 in 5 women hold executive-level positions and only 14% of board seats are filled by women.  There is only one company in the entire state that has equal gender representation in executive positions and boards.

The article then goes on to explain how women have been held back throughout American history.  Not too long ago banks were allowed to not give a woman a loan without a co-signature from her husband.  Setbacks like these explain the inequity we see today.  They also shed light on how far we have come in such a short amount of time and press society to move forward with gender equality in not only the workplace but society as a whole.

The example from Washington with political gender equality can be expanded to the whole country.  A female senator from New York, Hillary Clinton, nearly made the democratic nomination for president.  She came very close to breaking the highest glass ceiling of the world.  If she almost made it it's only a matter of time before it is actually broken.

Do you think we'll have a female president in the next 20 years?  Why or why not?  Reply below!

-- Luis Otero

Survey: Women still feel glass ceiling

This article that I found in the Chicago Tribune talks about how a British study reports that three-quarters of professional women believe they're still held back from senior roles in the workplace. Therefore, they believe that a "glass ceiling" still exists. The study reached these results after surveying 3000 male and female managers.

The article then goes on to talk about different reasons as to why this might be occurring. The first issue that was pointed out was that women tend to have lower confidence and ambition than men. Out of the men and women that were surveyed 50 percent of the women managers said they have experienced self doubt, while only 31 percent of the men claimed that they have. Women also tend to have lower expectations. It is said that only 50 percent of the women expected to one day become a manager while 2/3 of the men had planned on it from the begining.

Finally, the artice discusses different ways companies can go about changing their ways to help women feel more comfortable in managment careeres. It says that companies should try harder to nuture its women. Mervyn Davies a fromer trade minister metioned that statutory quotas are being considered to increase the number of women on company boards. According to the survey, half of the women that were surveyed suppored quotas, compared to only 24 percent of men. Most of the women (62 percent) were more in favor of "positive action" to increse the numbe of senior roles.  If campanies want to start addressing the differences in the numbers between men and women in the top positions, changes will have to be made.

In class we have learned that the more diverse a company the better off it is. Do you think that companies should change their ways and cator towards the needs of women?

Article

-Nina Pysson

 

 

Glass Ceiling not breaking...

In New York, minorities including women are not equal at eateries. An article by Marlene Naanes of AM New York, addresses the issues of diversity at restaurant jobs. White applicants are twice as likely to get a job offer after an interview and women earn 22% less than men. In this situation diversity is an issue including their accents. More white people with a slight European accent were 23% more likely to be hired than white applicants with no accent. Women also were offered jobs on their looks more than any other trait about them. The New York State Restaurant Association said that inequality is not intrinsic to the restaurant industry but the association does offer seminars on hiring and firing practices, expert consultants and Spanish-language classes. In the restaurant industry in New York, not only is it gender diversity but their is an earnings gap also. With the glass ceiling in the industry, even if a minority was hired they would not be able to work their way to the top. Race diversity is another problem area where not many African Americans are being hired at all. The Glass Ceiling is a major problem in many industries but if industries do not hire the minorities they will never have the opportunity to rise above the glass ceiling.
-Aimee Rankovich
Article

Judges Diversity changing Verdicts?!

This article is based on information from Cook County, Illinois. Only men could be judges in the past and now the courts are becoming more diverse. Women held only 8.4% of circuit judge seats in 1991 which now have increased to 14.9%. Women still are the minority on the bench but are causing an impact. Studies are being done that question the verdict on cases that women are the judges. Throughout most of these studies though the determination was that women were more masculine in the courtroom then men. They are trying hard not to perform as women that they are reaching the same conclusion as the men but using a different decision-making process. There was a conclusion made though that women were imposing harsher sentences in criminal cases than their male counterparts. This article shows examples on how the diversity of a workplace or industry could cause results that may not be the same as their male counterparts, that normally would be good but could mean unequal sentencing. In the mainstream of things, women joining men on the courts is a very smart move with many voters voting in favor of women candidates. -Aimee Rankovich









Through the Glass Ceiling

Valuing Gender Diversity at WEF

I wanted to post something different this time so I am providing you with the link to a video about Ernst & Young and how they feel about gender diversity.
Video:
They brought up some pretty good points in the video:
- new quota that top partners should inlclude one female in their five delegates
- leads to economic growth
- have a gender gap report
- gender diversity is a positive thing
        -leads to broader discussions becuase of the different perpectives
        - teams are going to become diverse in the future
        - teams are either off the charts great or very poor
        - if a good culture is created within the team then high performance will result
By implementing this new policy the new teams will have different perpectives and opinions allowing them to consider alternatives that they hadn't before. This is going to increase the company's creativity in decision making. This will give the comapny a competive advantage over others but as Mr. James Turley mentioned diversity must be managed well in order to see great results. If diversity is not manged properly companies and teams kind find themsleves facing many challenges and no success. Some ways they can mange the diversity within their teams is to create a  team contract like we did in class. This way team members can aknowledge each others differences, learning and leadership styles, and come to a consensus about how they will move forward. Having set expectations and accountabilty is a great way to  start managing diversity within organizations!

Quasheena Ellis

Deloitte's Diversity Push

Although this article is a little dated  I wanted to write about this article because I found it interesting. Deloitte is a major international accounting and consulting firm and 92% of its partners and top executives are white. So Deloitte is trying to diversify its’company by going to some of the top community colleges with great business programs and a strong minority base to recruit. According to the article many recruiters are bypassing community college recruits because they say “community college students are less suited to the job.” CEO Barry Salzberg says "Many have the ability and the drive and targeting these schools offers us a unique opportunity to reach another distinct pool of diverse, top talent." The article goes on to talk about how and where they will recruit students. I thought this was an interesting article because in class and in the book it talks about how having a diverse environment can lead to great opportunities for a company like higher company performance and a more satisfied workforce. Salzberg know the benefits diversity can bring to the company and is actively pursuing to increase diversity. I do worry because the article stated that majority of the top executives and partners (92%) are white. This makes me wonder about the initial challenges the company will face by diversifying its workforce. There probably will be some strong faultlines created and a similarity-attraction phenomenon going on. Although I do believe the company will face some challenges I do think the end results (higher company performances, more satisfied workforce, etc) will be worth it. Plus, Deloitte can implement diversity training programs, make managers accountable for diversity, build cultural intelligence and start to build a culture of respecting diversity. The question I pose to you is do you think this new recruiting will be successful and what impact to you think it will have on the company’s current coporate culture? I know that the article was written in 2009 but I still want to know what you all think. I will try to find an update on the company's status and let you all know if they were in fact successful with its diversity plan!

Link to article: http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/oct2009/ca2009102_173180.htm

Quasheena Ellis

Survival of the Feminist

http://stopharass.com/article-glass-ceiling.htm

  

Once again, I found this article searching through Google. This article starts off by giving facts such as “only 7%-9% of senior managers in Fortune 1000 firms are women (Korn-Ferry and Catalyst).” Wow. That’s very sad because just about half of the workforce in the U.S. consists of women. Even more startling facts is that highly educated and well-qualified women are denied higher positions because of stereotypes, taking a risk to have them in that position, and not being able to see a high potential that women can bring to the overall company.

More often than not, women are starting to leave companies because of unwanted women in certain management positions. But these women are not heading home, they are going out and starting their own businesses and having major companies lose out on amazing amounts of talent, creativity and of course diversity.

The article then goes on to explaining what women can do to make themselves stronger and more known in the workforce. It gives good insight on networking with people as well as receiving feedback after performance of projects. The article also goes into talking about what managers should do to help promote gender differences in positive ways so everything is not always male-centered.

If you are a valuable female with great outside-of-the-box ideas working for a well-known company for many years, but have not been able to move up, would you stay with that company and try to work something out, or would you leave and start your own business? And why?

Jon Locke

Have women shattered the glass ceiling?

Link to article: http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2010-04-15-column15_ST1_N.htm

This article is written by a woman in the business world who has experienced exactly what the glass ceiling does to women.  She states that although some may say the glass ceiling has been shattered after a landmark AT&T lawsuit required the company to pay out back pay to women and minorities that this is far from the truth.  I would have to agree with the author.

The author offers very compelling evidence that backs up the claim that the glass ceiling is definitely still intact.  Among Fortune 500 companies, women only occupy 15% of board seats and only 3% of CEOs are women.  This is absurdly unequal.  Women deserve to be represented more fairly in the corporate world.  Especially since research has proved that women in senior-executive roles in a company increase profits and drive success within the organization.  The article also delves into women getting up to 23% less pay for the same exact job men do.

This really needs to change.  Women are being left out of opportunities they deserve and are being paid less for doing the same work.  The glass ceiling is far from being shattered and a lot of work from everyone needs to be done to shatter it.

What do you think we can do to help resolve this inequity in the workplace?  Comment below!

Luis Otero

Pregnant Women Affected by Harassment and Discrimination in the Workplace

As I was looking at articles to write about, I found this one about pregnant women in the workplace quite interesting. This is the first article that I have came across that has really talked about how being pregnant or becoming pregnant can affect you at your job. It then goes on to talk about what you can do if you run into this problem at work.

According to this article studies have shown that women who become or may become pregnant are often discriminated against through pay, or more subtle forms of harassment in the form of jokes or quips. Some women may be able to take the jokes, but others may have a really hard time with this. They might take the jokes more serious than what it was originally tended to be. In fact, a lot of people probably do not even realize that what they are saying could bother someone since, since that is not their original intensions. During pregnancy a women's hormones get even worse, so dealing with the jokes could cause a woman unnecessary stress.

If this is going on in the work place and you do not like it, the best thing to do is talk to document the problem and take it up with the management team. Then, if this does not work one should send a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Finally, if neither of these steps work, one should speak with a local employee rights attorney.

Everyone is here because a woman gave birth to them. It is just part of life that people need to accept. Do you think it is right that women are being discriminated against just because they are pregnant or may become pregnant in the future?

Article

-Nina Pysson

Even with a Masters Degree, the Glass Ceiling is Still in Effect

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/03/15/glass-ceiling-is-still-solid-especially-if-you-have-an-mba/

I found this article online talking about how women are still only making 77.8 cents for every dollar men are making. I think that's ridiculous! One thing mentioned from the beginning of the article is that President Obama signed something called the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which extends the time allowed to sue for pay discriminatory. That's a good thing, but at the same time, how does that help the difference of 22.2 cents remaining for women to be paid equally as soon as they receive the job?

The article then goes on to talking about a study created by Catalyst to look at men and women who have completed their MBA programs and where they are at in their career. And of course, women are most likely to start off a at first job at a lower level salary then men do. Catalyst even came up with controls that could possibly change the results: experience, industry, geography, aspiration, and parenthood.

The results were presented to corporate leaders and most, if not all were surprised by what Catalyst has proven. Finally, the article gives an example of a real world experience with female working in New York City in a dominantly male department and industry. The female has had her MBA for 15 years and worked at the company for 6 years, and has not been offered a higher position once just because she is a female.

The book states that out of all of the Fortune 500 companies, only 12 have women CEOs. If you were offered a CEO position in one of these companies, had your MBA, and you found out a similar company with a new male CEO was getting paid more than you, how would you handle this knowing you could make a difference across the board?

Jon Locke

Women's share of jobs slipping

Article

When looking though articles about women in the workforce, I found this one titled Women's share of Jobs Slipping by Christianna McCausland, quite interesting. This article talks about how the great recession was hard on the male workers. During this time, so many men found themselves, and by October of 2009 women held a record of 46.96% of the jobs. Things were finally starting to look good for women, but not for long. The following month the numbers once again began to drop. Male dominated jobs like manufacturing started to recover and female-dominated ones like education began to cut cost and lay teachers off.

This article states that although women make up half the attendance of law schools and graduate from college at higher rates than men do, they account for only 18 percent of partners in private law practice and 3 percent of Fortune 500 executives. In recent years, research shows that more women than men have been graduating from college in major cities. It has also been sited that 73 percent of recent high school valedictorians were women. Just last year, women’s median full-time earnings were $36,278 compared to $47,127 for men. This makes us question, will women’s numbers be able to finally surpass the men’s in the future?

Nina Pysson

Diversity in the Workplace

The article I decided to write my first blog about is entitled “Does Pay?: Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity” by Herring Cedric. Cedric argues that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogenous one, is generally beneficial for business, including but not limited to corporate profits and earnings. He goes on to show how results from a National Organizations Survey support his hypothesis that  racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, great market share, and greater relative profits and gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers and greater relative profits. I found this article to be very interesting because when we discussed chapter two of the text (Managing Demographic and Cultural Diversity) we talked about these same topics. When companies manage diversity correctly that can see great results because it gives them a completive advantage over other companies. Cedric also have graphs and tables showing the correlation between different levels racial and gender diversity and company benefits. I will provide a link to this article and the tables. The question I pose to you is how can companies who aren’t diverse implement diversity within their companies? And how do homogenous companies manage to be successful if they don’t implement diversity within their companies? (EX: Hooters only hire women)Diversity

LINK: (http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?hid=121&sid=ce5decec-c948-4e3a-858d-364d4180c2f0%40sessionmgr104&vid=4&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=sih&AN=37353174)

Quasheena Ellis

Women in the workplace and explanations for pay disparity

Link to article: http://www.forbes.com/2006/03/07/glass-ceiling-opportunities--cx_hc_0308glass.html

I stumbled across this article while researching women and the glass ceiling in corporate America.  The article states that concern over pay differences between men and women is becoming less of a concern among women.  The article also explains some reasons for the pay differences found in the workplace such as women working fewer hours and women not keeping jobs as long as men.  Even after considering these explanations, there is still a disparity in pay between men and women.

The article mentions that the concern for lower pay isn't felt as much anymore because women don't hold their job success all on pay and job status.  Women care more about their relationship with co-workers and charitable causes.

One of the most important points mentioned in the article is that women want the same power and responsibility in the workplace as men do.  In other words, women aren't holding themselves back from reaching the top of the corporate ladder; they want to reach the top.  Also, a survey shows that most executives admit to an invisible barrier (glass ceiling) existing.

Overall, women are generally happy with their pay and job positions.  As mentioned before, their happiness doesn't come simply from job title and salary.  Women seek more such as relationships with coworkers.

Here's a question for everyone.  Just because women are generally "happy" with their status in the workplace, does that mean we should do nothing to break the glass ceiling that is preventing those who are ambitious from reaching the top of the corporate ladder?

Luis Otero

Women, From a Politics Standpoint